


Howling Moon

by Davechicken



Series: Darkpilot Omegaverse [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-equivalent torture and interrogation, Death you'll be happy to read, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, M/M, Medical Trauma, Mentions of Snoke's interference with Ben, Mpreg, No Underage Sex, Non sexualised, Omega Verse, Post TFA, Pre-teen hormones, Teen Hormones, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, pre tfa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:22:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 32
Words: 71,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6327028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe Dameron is certain of two things. One: he will be a pilot. Two: Ben belongs to him, and him alone. And even if the galaxy has other ideas, it's wrong.</p><p>Poe is right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Hot Summer Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poetdameron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetdameron/gifts).



> “THERE ARE NIGHTS WHEN THE WOLVES ARE SILENT AND ONLY THE MOON HOWLS."~ GEORGE CARLIN
> 
> Chapter titles 1-9 from Meatloaf's 'Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth'.
> 
> Most blatantly sparked into being after reading [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6359290), with permission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, the underage warning only applies to this chapter, really. They don't act on it, though there's some urges there. They don't plan on acting on it, either. It's just young hormonal flooding. Caveat lector, you go into this fore-warned :)
> 
> Image thanks to the lovely [@tooflyforajedi](http://www.tooflyforajedi.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

** _On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses? (Meatloaf - Took the words right out of my mouth.)_ **

Poe Dameron is seven years old. Ben Organa-Solo is five and a quarter (Tuesday next week). Normally you only have one birthday a year, but Poe missed Ben’s fifth birthday by two days, and so they are going to celebrate his quarter-birthday. Poe would like to celebrate it anyway, but his mom says he can only get presents for his friend once a year, and this is a special occasion, because he missed Ben’s fifth birthday. 

Poe is very sad he missed Ben’s fifth birthday. He thinks maybe it was an okay birthday, but when Poe asked him about it, Ben had not been very open with what happened. He did show Poe his new shoes and jacket, and also his art supplies. Ben feels bad about the art supplies because he had begged for them, but then he didn’t think he was very good with them. Poe thinks he is, but Ben still does not. 

Ben Organa-Solo is perfect. Poe has _decided._ He is perfect and he wants to be his friend forever and ever. His little hand is warm in his own, and he has a big smile when he lets himself smile. He knows lots about ships and his mom is General Princess Organa! How cool is that! And his dad is General Han Solo! And he has an Uncle who is a Wookie and one who is a Jedi! The only Jedi! Luke Skywalker! Poe was very impressed by this. Ben introduced them all when he went over to play. He was polite to them all and smiled all the way up to Ben’s room, which is when Ben had been sad for the first time.

Poe could tell Ben was sad. He did not want to look it, his brown eyes trying to smile so hard, but it was something in his face that he could see; and it hurt Poe, and Poe wanted the hurt to go away for both of them. Mostly for Ben. The pain he felt was only because he did not like his new best friend to be sad.

“What’s wrong?” he had asked.  


“Nothing is wrong,” Ben had replied. It was a lie, and lies were bad.  


“Did I say something wrong?”  


“No… nothing wrong.” The younger boy had fired up the table for them to play the flying game he’d told him about.   


Poe had not understood, but he showed Ben how to fly his little ship better and before long Ben was not sad and Poe was happy.

***

Ben is really smart. Poe knew this, even before the teachers said so. Pilots and politicians moved around a lot, and people often assumed it would make their children _not_ smart. It definitely made it hard to make friends, but Mom and Dad have been staying here for a while, now, so Poe is happy. 

Mom is a Pilot. She is a really good Pilot. Poe loves to watch her fly, and loves to sit on her knee when she takes one of the bigger ships up. Her helmet is way too big for Poe, but Poe still wears it.

Anyway. Ben is smart, so they get to take classes together sometimes! This is great. He sits with Ben, and he doesn’t care when people look at them. He does not understand why they look at him differently. Ben is great.

Poe is going to marry Ben. He told Ben this, and Ben said yes. Poe knew he would say yes, because they are Meant To Be Together. Like Mom and Dad. Poe knows with all the certainty of a young boy, because Ben makes him happy where other people don’t. Not that they are bad, just they are not Ben.

“But, sweetie,” his mother says, when he tells her that night over his mash potatoes. “What… what if you don’t present right for one another?”  


“It doesn’t matter,” he tells her, with more of that certainty. “We’re in love.”  


“Poe… he’s your friend.”  


“And I love him,” Poe insists, eyes going a little bit like angry. “We can both be Alphas, if we want. You said people can love who they want.”  


“Yes, they can, but… it’s… it’s easier if they fall in love with someone who…”  


“I love him already!”  


“You know, romantic love is different. I love you, but I love Daddy in a different way.”  


Poe wants to stomp his little fork into his mash, but that is bad and he’s good, so he doesn’t. “It doesn’t matter. I love him. And he loves me. And if we can’t have babies then we’ll get a pet.”

His mother doesn’t mention it again.

***

They learn about things like _bits_ and **roles**. About hormones, and mating. About how to be careful, and how to be the best you can be, no matter what. The lessons are all general, but children point and whisper after them, and make their predictions.

Poe does not know why they think it would be so bad to be an omega, either male or female. Omegas get to have babies, and they get to be caring and loving and great. Betas are nice, too. They can have babies, or make babies, so they can do everything. Alphas make babies, and look after their omegas or betas. The rest of the stuff is just like how girls are a bit different from boys, and girls and boys can do most the same stuff anyway, so really it’s only the babies-getting things that are different, right?

So it doesn’t matter. It’s great whatever you are. It just changes how the babies happen. They tell them that Alphas can be soft and kind, and omegas can have powerful jobs, and betas can be great parents. The other kids point at him and whisper _omega_ , and Poe thinks he would be fine with that, right? They say it because of how close he is to Ben. How he likes to spend his time cuddling and playing. Poe does not care. 

Maybe a bit he worries when Ben presents as the Alpha he probably will be, that if Poe is a beta, that he won’t be considered fertile enough to have his babies, but he knows Ben will love him anyway. Ben’s mother is an Alpha. He does not know what his dad is. 

He only knows General Princess Organa is an Alpha because Ben told him so. Ben worries he will not be, but he is tall for his age and he has those features that they suggest might make him into an Alpha. Or some of them. His nose and his hands. Poe has the jaw, and secretly he wonders how that would work. Maybe they will both be Alphas? Because then they would be twice as strong, or something.

Whatever happens, he knows Ben is his. And he knows _he_ is Ben’s.

So it’s all gonna be just swell.

***

When Poe is twelve, everything changes. Things have been getting weird for a while, and no one said anything, but he kind of worked out that it - _it_ \- was coming. Sort of. The start of being an **adult**. Or an adolescent, anyway. When he’ll _present_. He’s twelve, and he shot up last year, way, way taller than everyone else all of a sudden, but it’s started to slow.

He knows things are coming to a head when he’s playing with Ben. They’re playing at Bounty Hunters and Criminals and Poe is the Bounty Hunter. He has the helmet he made out of a big, empty food tub with the face plate cut out and the handle as a chinstrap. He has his toy blaster, and _okay_ , maybe they’re a bit old for this game. Maybe they shouldn’t be playing it, but Poe just - he needs to - he needs to run off some of this **excess energy** that’s flooding through him, and then - then -

He has Ben on the floor. Ben, who is ten, and who is still his best friend. Who is shorter than him, and who has those warm brown eyes. Who laughs when Poe tells jokes, and tells jokes that Poe laughs to. Ben who was there when he lost his Mom. Ben who he’s always loved, one way or another. Maybe he hasn’t joked about them getting married and played with dolls with him for years, now, but it’s still there. That lingering sense of _future_ , that possibility.

Poe has him on his back. He has hold of Ben’s wrists, and Ben’s breathing is coming all thready and weird and his eyes are dark and his lips look - his lips - 

–they used to kiss when they were younger. Little kisses. To a cheek, to a wrist, to the side of the mouth. Ben said adult kisses were sloppy and slimy, so Poe always did dry kisses, so he didn’t mind them so much. Poe stares at his lips and he wants to try a messy kiss, a dirty one, like adults do. He can feel a weird thing in his middle and he wants - he doesn’t know, but it smells of Ben, and Ben is his, and–

A play bite, nothing more. That’s what it’s meant to be, when he lowers his head to Ben’s bared neck. When he licks over his too-nice skin and he growls playfully and he–

“MASTER DAMERON.”  


Poe startles, and looks guiltily over his shoulder. “Y-yes?”

“Stop that at once!”  


“We were just playing,” he protests. He wasn’t trying to - to - _claim_ him. Even though he knows they belong together. He– wait. He **was** , wasn’t he? The weird little hungry thing is his… he wants to bond with him. Properly. And Ben looks like he wants it, too, but he’s twelve and Ben is ten and you’re supposed to wait. Even if you know.  


And Poe doesn’t know if omegas or betas ever feel the need to claim like this, so does that mean he’s… or is it just… playful? He doesn’t want to move, and the droid whirring around on its servos looks so annoyed.

“Threepio…” Ben’s voice cracks, and Poe wants to lick his throat. Okay. Definitely new urges going on, now.  


“Master Organa-Solo, you are expected to prepare for the function tonight.”  


“I’m not going.”  


“The Princess - your mother! - has informed me that you are!”  


“…fine! Fine. But let me… give us ten minutes?”  


“I most certainly will not, I have been given the task of chaperoning you, which I see I am remiss in!”  


“Threepio - _please_! Just ten minutes! We’re… we’re not going to do anything **stupid**.”  


“Not if I stay here, you will not.”  


Poe actually _growls._ “Ten. Minutes.”

“You will both come with me right this instant, or I shall–”  


“FINE!” Ben says, and wriggles out from under Poe.  


Poe wishes he wouldn’t. 

***

That night, Poe has really intense dreams. They sort of don’t make wonderful sense, but they don’t need to. He’s with Ben, and Ben smells wonderful. No one is around, and Ben’s throat is covered with tiny little claiming bites that are the precursor to the main event. Poe’s chest feels so broad, and the stars are bright above them. 

It’s so dark, so dark and there’s also cold. Cold outside, and heat inside, and _heat inside_ and he needs - he - 

He wakes up, yelling, and there’s a sticky mess all over the sheets. His penis is definitely changing shapes a bit. Not full-on knot, but there’s a swelling, and it’s all sort of… it’s… he’s…

…he’s an Alpha, too?

***

They check him over the next day. He’s pulled out of school. His dad takes him to the clinic, and there’s tests and readings and holo-pamphlets and things about how to handle Presenting so young. Because he is young. Not too young to be really weird, but definitely he’s the first one in school. Maybe the only one, unless someone’s hidden it.

He’s in rut. They tell him that. He’s in rut, so he has to stay at home for a few days. He can’t be around any omegas, or anyone who hasn’t Presented properly. It’s dangerous to medicate away the early cycles, they tell him. Best to let it take its course. See if - when it fades - he can still stay with the others, or if he’s going to cause social problems.

Social problems. Like he’s some kind of monster who will go around claiming every omega or beta he sees, or butting heads with other Alphas. He feels angry at that, and really it’s just - it’s _Ben_ he needs to see.

Because he’s an Alpha. So he won’t let Ben down. Whatever happens, now he won’t disappoint him. Right?

Right?

***

They let him call Ben, but nothing else. It’s better than nothing.

“So. You’re the first Alpha in class,” Ben says, and he can see his friend - his **Ben** \- is restless and anxious.  


“Yeah, but I’m two years older than you. So I have a headstart on you, so don’t feel bad.”  


“You’re never gonna give that up, are you?”  


“When you catch up with me.”  


“I’d have to kill you to do that,” Ben complains. “Don’t die.”  


Poe laughs. “I’m not gonna die. I’m just gonna… be… locked up here when I’m hormonal for a few months. Until they know I’m okay. I mean, if I ever get monthly ruts. It’s not always a thing, and then sometimes it’s only around your mate.”

Ben’s tongue steals out over his lips, and he wants to say something.

“Hey. Hey. Out with it?”  


“If I’m Alpha as well… you really think we won’t fight?”  


“Why would I fight with _you_?”  


“I dunno. You hear… I dunno, Poe. I just… I’m worried.”  


“Babe… I love you. You know that. You know it’s gonna be okay.”  


“What if I don’t Present for years? And… any which way, you… you know you’ll be ready two years before me.”  


“I would wait _two hundred_ years for you, Ben. I promise. I’m… look. I want to do things, but I want you, more. And we work out how we make it work, okay?”  


“Okay.”  


“It’s gonna be alright, Ben.”  


“I hope so.”  


***

Ben does not make Poe wait until he’s twenty-five. Ben barely makes it through to Poe’s next rut before things start happening. He’s ten, and he’s young, and one minute everything is fine, and the next they’re forcibly held apart from one another, and Poe breaks someone’s nose in an attempt to get to his _mate_.

Ben. **Ben**. He can’t think of anything else, because he can _smell_ him, and he wants to **claim him** and sensible thought is gone and he’s carried out of the room by two bulky, burly betas as they rush Ben off to the medical ward to deal with the sudden rush of virgin slick that will turn everyone’s head.

Poe doesn’t even really understand the sex part of it, he doesn’t. He just knows that **Ben is an omega** and _he is an Alpha_ and it means he was right, all along. Ben does belong with him. It’s just that they’re completely the ‘wrong’ Presentation, and Poe is absolutely fine with that, he is.

Oh, is he ever.

And they’re going to need splitting up or one - or both of them - putting on suppressants, at this rate. They’re much too young to mate properly, despite what their pre-teen bodies are telling them to do. 

Poe decides he should take them, because he wants to make sure Ben is healthy and fit. Especially for when they want kids.

Because they are so having kids.

Just… when they’re… twenty. Or something. Not yet. But eventually.

Oh yeah, he thinks, as he’s left in a room, waiting for his dad to come pick him up. He’s going to give him pups. He’s going to breed him, just as soon as he can. Just as soon as Ben is ready. He’s going to hold him down and…

… _he needs to stop acting like an Alpha-class idiot_ , he tells himself, and jumps into the shower in the room. He doesn’t even really know that much about the sex side of it, other than their empty lessons, and it’s also _not allowed yet_. 

This is going to be the death of him.

But it will be worth it, when he finally makes Ben his forever. Yes.

***

“They say… it will help.”  


Ben doesn’t sound like he agrees.

“Help?”  


“…me cope.”  


“…cope with _what_ , **me**?”  


“You. And. And my Force powers.” Ben is flushing from head to toe, and it makes Poe sad. “…and being an omega.”  


“There’s nothing wrong with you and me,” Poe pleads, even though it isn’t Ben he needs to convince, is it? It’s his parents. They’re doing this. They think it will help them, but it won’t.   


“Poe… look at me!”  


“I do, every day!”  


“I’m… I’m a terrible omega! I’m too tall! I’m… I’m a _mess_!”  


“You are not! Omegas can be anything, Ben. You can be anything. You are beautiful, and I love you.”  


“You just love my type,” Ben insists, and ends the call.   


Poe stares at the dead holo in confusion. Ben has been… he’s been moodier, recently, but they’d just assumed it was his pre-pubescent hormones. Maybe it still is. Normally they would always talk one another through things. Does Ben think he’s going to - to take advantage of him? Is that why he’s leaving?

They’re _meant to be_. Why doesn’t anyone but Poe seem to understand?

Why are they sending Ben away? Is he really that much of an asshole? He’s twelve! He’s not going to do anything! There’s also most of the month when they won’t need to be split up, and… Poe’s heart breaks. 

What if Ben doesn’t love him the same way? He was always so sure. They say it, in the songs, in the holos. Sometimes you aren’t your mate’s mate. Sometimes it doesn’t work, and Poe is terrified it means Ben doesn’t want to be with him like he wants to be with Ben.

It’s all awful. All of it.

Ben leaves two days later. 


	2. Will he offer me his mouth?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is worried about how he will Present, now Poe is an Alpha, and things are moving faster than anyone wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor references to a young omega in heat, and frustrated. References to a certain Supreme Leader and his interference with Ben. (No overtly sexualised things with Snoke.) Minor, oblique child grooming (non-sexual).

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?  
_Will he offer me his mouth?_  
                                                                     **Yes.**  


Ben already doesn’t know how to handle Poe being an Alpha. The main problem is he’d seen it coming, more or less since they first met. Poe had that inner confidence to him which more of his type did than betas or omegas he’d known. Although people always said ‘see the person, not the type’, there was simply some statistical evidence to back up the differences.

Some had thought Poe would be a beta, because he was level-headed. Some thought he would be an omega, because he was so doting on Ben and so agreeable with everyone. No one but Ben really saw that Poe had that strength, that surety, that sense of self. Poe would grow up to be an amazing Alpha, because he wouldn’t let his position (sexually or socially) go to his head. He is just an incredibly nice person, and no amount of hormones would change that.

Which is great. It is. But it also makes Ben anxious as all hell, because Poe being an Alpha… well. They both knew they belonged together, or so Poe said. Ben isn’t so convinced he would ever be good enough for Poe, but he wants to be. Poe is so wonderful, and kind, and _good_.

Ben is less so.

And an Alpha was supposed to be ‘happiest’ with an omega, in most cases. It was a biological fact. Sure, some betas got with Alphas and had loving, fulfilling relationships. Betas got with omegas, too, but that wouldn’t be the problem here. If Ben turns out to be a beta, Poe would assure him he wasn’t a lesser option, but Ben would always feel it. He’d be less fertile, and he’d have less intense hormonal cycling. Ben doesn’t understand what it would feel like to have or not have a cycle, but the media sure makes it look like the best (and worst) thing possible. He feels sorry for the betas. They were always the middle man in things, sent in when an Alpha was growling and rutting, or an omega was gnashing and wailing. A few stories had them as happy love interests, but not enough, and Ben is just old enough to see through the cracks.

If he is an Alpha like his mother… well. Would he and Poe clash? Would their primary affection for one another turn sour when they both started to compete? Would they both want to be ‘top dog’? Alpha relationships tended to be driven and aggressive, and usually both parties took a lot of their frustrations out in their careers. They also rarely had children without a third party involved.

Ben couldn’t see himself ever trying to ‘beat’ Poe at anything. He has his pride in himself, he does. He is proud to be a member of the Skywalker-Organa-Solo line, he _is_. He is proud to be strong in the Force like his mother, uncle, and grandfather. He wants to be good at those things, but those things weren’t Poe-things. They were something Poe could never have for himself, and nor could anyone else, really. Those were for Ben and Ben alone, and he wants to excel in them for himself.

So… omega. Which Ben is both terrified of becoming, and somehow sure it probably will happen. His father is an omega. His uncle. He doesn’t know what Anakin Skywalker had been, but there are plenty of people who speculate or claim to know on the holo-net; guessing the typing of famous people who weren’t ‘out’ is a popular pass-time, after all. But there were two male omegas in his direct family line, and he tries to tell himself it was only his gender that made him look more like his father. He does. He really, really does, but when he sees holos of his father when he was younger, his fingers trace over the intangible lines and see himself reflected back at him.

Ben would be a terrible omega, he knows. He is too tall already. He is broadening in the shoulders, day by day. He used to try to hunch down smaller, but then he realised he was being ridiculously stereotypical omega-bitch, so he stopped. He’s already overly emotional because he picks up on what people are thinking and feeling through the Force. More than once, he’s been able to tell when an omega was about to go into pre-heat, or an Alpha into rut. It’s never been particularly comfortable. Even ignoring cycles, he still winces if he feels anyone in pain, and no amount of shielding techniques will work consistently and constantly. He’s mostly stopped affecting others with his moods, but he’s terrified he’ll reduce whole rooms to sobbing when he Presents.

And they took Poe away. He knows why. He knows that anyone who shows has to get used to this new aspect to their body. This new drive and craving, and this new change in their sexuality. They’ve all been told about it, and what to do if they’re around someone who is obviously about to Present and cause havoc. Ben thought it was just over-sensationalising and trying to stop teenagers ‘mating’ with the first biologically compatible other, and ending up either stuck with them, or marked as pre-mated and thus unreliable, should they dissolve the union. A=They taught them all the things about firmly standing your ground and backing away, vocal control, looking for exits, calling for help and even anti-rape alarms and sprays. Ben used to think it was way, way overblown. 

Over the holo, Poe had seemed himself. A bit antsy, a bit tense, but still Poe. He hadn’t looked like some rapist. Ben is sure Poe could never rape anyone. But maybe being around Ben would make Poe uncomfortable, until he can control his urges or medicate them, or something. And Ben doesn’t want his best friend to be upset in his presence. Holo-calls are okay. Not the best, but they’ve lived with them before, when one or the other had to go away for a few nights or weeks. Right now, he kind of wants to just curl up with him, hold hands, and tell him how great an Alpha he will be. How he’s so beautiful and kind, and loving, and wonderful. Tell him it’s nothing to be afraid of.

Ben is the one they should be afraid of.

***

It is harder in the night times, or when he is alone. When there are other people around, Ben can reach out to feel safe. He figures they wouldn’t mind him just tapping into their emotional responses, if he avoids their thought processes. It’s just like adding an extra layer behind the tone of their voices, and it gives him something to drown himself into.

His mother is strong. Strong in the Force, and strong in general. He admires her with all that he is. Her thoughts are always about noble things like duty and justice and stuff. Well. Mostly. Sometimes she feels tired, or irritable, or she feels overwhelmed with affection and protective urges towards his father. Sometimes she feels so proud of Ben, and other times so concerned. She probably knows he’s reaching out mentally for her hand, because he’s sure he feels answering touches in his mind sometimes. It’s comforting. 

His dad has never liked it the same. He doesn’t know when Ben does it, but when he’d been younger, his dad had snapped at him a few times for mentioning loud thoughts he’d felt. Not nasty-snap, but worried-snap. Still it had upset him, so Ben doesn’t go into his head as much. Only when he feels really distressed, and mostly he hasn’t done it to him in years. Chewie was always fine with it, so Ben goes there, instead. Most always his Dad and Chewie are together, so that’s okay. 

At night times, people dream. And dreams are more private, and Ben doesn’t think he should look into them. It feels more like a bad thing then, than just seeing if your mother or best friend is excited or indifferent. So he keeps inside of his own head, and that’s when it becomes… bad.

He tried to tell his mom about it, he did. He tried to tell her about - about the… _thoughts_ , about the _voice_ , but the voice told him not to. Told him he was special, and that he should keep it to himself. Told him that no one else would understand him, or this. Told him that he wanted it, that he needed it.

Ben isn’t even sure any more. He’s so tired. He just wants to sleep. The voice keeps telling him he’s _wrong_ in one breath, and **special and powerful** in the next. He just wants it to shut up. He just wants to _sleep_.

He thinks much more and he will go insane.

***

The world ends twelve days later. Ben wakes up and he hates everyone and everything. His sheets are too scratchy, and they reek of sleep and sweat and broken nightmares. His skin feels sticky, his hair won’t behave, and he just - _hates_. Everyone. Everything.

He sits eating his breakfast cereal before school, mostly pushing the little solid islands around in the ocean of milk. Maybe the islands will destroy one another in a little war? He watches them distantly, as Threepio pesters him to go to class.

Fine.

Whatever.

He goes to class, sullen, and then… the minute he lays eyes on Poe? There’s this arcing, like lightning finding earth. His head switches off, and animal instinct takes over. A rush of blood through him, powerful, iron-copper hungry, and a glorious, spreading heat between his legs.

 _Poe_. His mate. His **mate**. No one else in the whole world matters in that moment, just Poe. A sense of belonging and rightness that would worry some, but Ben has always felt drawn to him, always felt safe and secure. He wants to offer up his throat and swear himself forever, wants strong hands on him and–

Strong arms that _are not Poe’s_ try to restrain him, and he lashes out with the Force, trying to break free. He doesn’t want _them_. They aren’t allowed to claim him! No! Poe is! Poe needs to make this official, so the whole world can see Ben Organa-Solo is _taken_ , is _mated_ , is **beloved**.

He’s fairly sure he bites someone, and he thrashes until he’s thrown into a room by himself, howling abuse and lust and love and need.

Ben doesn’t remember much after that. A long, interminable period of agony and despair as his body wracks with convulsions and cramps, a slick, aching emptiness between his thighs. It’s not even that he cares about dealing with it, it’s that it’s there and he never asked for it.

He cries, and curls up in the blanket they gave him, wishing to the Maker and the stars that he’d at least been sensible enough to Present when he was old enough to be allowed to. Right now, he’s a complete pariah. He groggily realises he’s going to be kept apart from any unmated or non-trustworthy Alphas for some time.

You hear horror stories, after all. 

His life is _over_. His body decided to skip past years of physical maturing in order to satisfy his mate, and now it means he’ll be one of those _other_ children. The ones predators long for. The ones people whisper _slut_ about. The ones kept away from everyone - everyone - out of shame for their very biology.

Ben Organa-Solo is in **hell**.

***

When the heat-pangs die down enough, his mother sits beside him. She’s still towelling his forehead with a cool cloth, and he curls up tighter at the fact he wants and needs it.

Weak. He’s weak.

“Ben… I know it feels hard, but you can get through this.”  


“I don’t want to get through this.”  


She finds his chin with her fingers, but he resists the pull to eye-contact.

“I know, but you can do it. I believe in you.”  


“You don’t even know what I’m going through!”  


“I’m married to your father, Ben.”  


“Yeah, and you met him when he was old, and you were old, and it was all fine. And you can’t _know_ how I feel because you’re a stupid Alpha!”  


She grips his shoulder, and he growls at her, ferally.

“You’re right, I can’t know what it’s like. But your father–”  


“Please. He can’t teach me anything. He couldn’t even teach me how to fly.” He’s being unreasonable, and he knows it. “Why can’t I just have Poe?”  


“Because you’re ten, and you need to learn who you are, first.”  


“I know who I am, and who I am is stupid.” He rolls over, pulling blankets over his head. Petulant, and sad.  


“When you’re both old enough, if you both still want one another, then of course. But you do realise you’re too young, don’t you?”  


“If I’m too young, why is my body ready?”  


“…because back when we evolved, emotional maturity was less important than continuing the species. But now, we have to grow as people before–”  


“I’m sick of growing! I’ve grown into a **freak**. I didn’t ask for this. And now what? I don’t even get to see my best friend until everyone decides what we already know? Frak you. FRAK YOU.”  


“You can still holo-call. And… your father and I think it’s best you go to train with your uncle. He is also an omega, and he can teach you control over yourself, and the Force.”  


So he’s so bad they’re _sending him away?_ Ben refuses to even answer.

What is the point, anyway? He’s just royally fucked up, like the voice said, all along. He’s bad and wrong and stupid and foolish. He’s an omega slut, ready to drop his pants and shove his ass in the air before he’s even been shaving really. He’s just… wrong.

She reaches out into his mind, and Ben slams it tight shut.

No. She doesn’t get to look there. No one does.

***

Kylo Ren stands before the holo-projection of his Master, the Supreme Leader. He is wise. He is smart. He is powerful. Kylo Ren has sworn his saber-arm to his purpose.

He will triumph. He will overcome. He will teach Kylo how to truly master himself, and his emotions.

He won’t be held hostage to them any longer. He will own and rule them, not the other way around. He will school down that treacherous heat and arcing love, that fear and pain and anguish. He will use them to fuel his efforts, instead of suffer them.

His body floods with a strange numbness, something cut off. The hormonal blockers they have him on mean only vague currents, like a tiny rain-trickle, slide down the transparisteel of his soul. Gone are the gushing, longing tides. Now he is neutered, and no one needs to know if he is Alpha, beta, or omega.

He is none of these.

He is Kylo Ren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive me any errors, crappiness, or slowness. I broke my shoulder on Wednesday, and I am on a lot of pain meds. I will do what I can to keep writing.


	3. Will he offer me his teeth?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe Dameron: pilot extraordinaire. 
> 
> The General has a mission for him, and a map to find.

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?  
  
                Will he offer me his mouth?  
Yes.  
                    Will he offer me his teeth?  
Yes. 

****

Poe Dameron is the Resistance’s most _daring_ pilot. He’s barely been with the group for any length of time, and he already has the respect and appreciation of all the squadrons. Black Leader, and he lives up to the title and rank. 

He held out for as long as he could before he joined up, before he left the Republic to help the Resistance. It had been weighing heavily on his conscience for many years, and finally something in him had snapped. He couldn’t forever let a petty, personal matter rule the whole of his life. (Not petty, said that sad little voice deep, deep down inside. Not petty, but something beyond his control.) He couldn’t let his own demons destroy the galaxy. Not that he thought _he_ could save the galaxy, but he could help. And if everyone who could help was selfish and cruel, then the universe deserved whatever it got.

He had to be the bigger man. He had to.

General Organa had kept in touch with him, over the years. The polite, quiet respect between two Alphas. Poe hadn’t wanted to come back and be reminded of the _other_ woman. The one who was mother to a young boy, a young boy she’d ruined out of love. He is under no illusion that everything she did, she did with Ben’s best interests at heart, but sometimes… it wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t enough, and she’d driven her son - his _beloved_ \- away. The petty, Alpha part of him insists that if he’d been around to help Ben, then he’d still be here. The galaxy would have been a much safer, brighter place under Ben Organa-Solo, than it ever could be under the monster Kylo Ren.

But that’s over, now. It’s over. He can’t forever skulk under the silhouette of a long, black figure. He can’t let Darkness win, so he signed himself over to the Resistance, and he’s never looked back.

***

The thing with being a man with no ties is that they’re dangerous. An unmated Alpha is always a wildcard of some form, and in his lifestyle that’s no exception. 

Plenty of people love the thought of a wildcard. An adrenaline-seeking, death-defying hero, who can shove a knot made of lust and survival into them. Fuck them fast and hard, then shower and go. They want the image of the lone wolf who spreads his seeds far and wide, and not what he is when he comes home with his droid, on his own.

After all, who would want to settle down with someone who might never come home to roost?

Out of necessity, most fighterpilots are hot-headed Alphas (who often don’t last long, due to being overly competitive and brash), and betas who feel they have something to prove. Poe feels the tension whenever he walks into the changing rooms, and he wonders how anyone ever gets out of this gig alive.

Maybe they don’t. Maybe his father is the exception that proves the rule. After all, his mother didn’t survive.

Speaking of his father, Poe doesn’t really see much of him. He was half-pleased, half-horrified when he told him he was joining up with the Resistance, but he realised there was no point in arguing him out of it, even using his long-passed mother as leverage. Their relationship has been increasingly strained, year in, year out. Poe doesn’t care.

If it wasn’t for his fellow pilots, Poe would know everyone’s name and face, but have no one at all who would truly miss him if he went out into the black and never returned. It’s why he’s happy to take on the more risky missions. Not because he doesn’t want to come back, but because if he doesn’t, at least he’s not depriving anyone of someone they could love.

So when General Organa calls him for another black ops run, he’s all too willing to answer the summons.

***

“Commander,” she greets him, in response to his overtures. She’s long since resigned herself to the fact that he will only call her _General._  


General, politician, war hero, leader. Not mother. That part was _not_ up for discussion or remembrance. It was one of Poe’s only conditions, when he came over.

“Your memo implied another black ops mission?”   


Those were the best. The biggest payout, the biggest risk. The biggest chance to do some good.

To balance out the darkness in his past.

“Indeed. A friend - an old friend - Lor Sen Tekka. He has a map.”  


“Am I cleared to know what to?” Sometimes he is, sometimes he isn’t. Doesn’t matter. If General Organa thought it was a priority, then it was a priority. If he is captured and interrogated, he wouldn’t be able to tell them what he doesn’t know.  


There is a strange light in her eyes, at that. A longing, and he can tell it means a lot to her.

“My brother.”  


Luke Skywalker. Another hero, another legend. Another human, who was fallible. Who let Ben down.

Poe has conflicting feelings about Luke. On the one hand: he is a hero. The only remaining Jedi Master, responsible for the death of the Emperor, and the saving of his father, Darth Vader. Red One: destroyer of the Death Star. Hero.

Hero, with feet of skin, bone, sweat and insoles, same as everyone else.

Hero, who tried and failed to save his Ben, and who ran away after the event to Maker knew where, and Maker knew why. 

But he’s the sort of thing they need, right now. A beacon of hope, a possibility of rallying against the Dark Side. There’s no doubt in his mind that he’s going to go find him, and bring him home.

“Where is Lor Sen Tekka?”  


“Jakku.”  


***

Poe felt a weird sense of foreboding on the planet’s surface, long before BB-8 comes hurtling in to warn them both of the Order’s approach. He’s not surprised when his astro tells him there’s company due. He tries to get away in his false-coloured X-Wing, but they have to go and _hit_ their target for once, don’t they?

He can’t leave the villagers to die like womprats, he just can’t. With BB-8 safely fleeing with the map - like R2-D2 so many years ago - he shoulders his blaster rifle and…

No.

Oh, no, no, no.

He’s read all the intel he’s cleared to, of course he has. He knows all about the _Upsilon_ class ship currently purring on the ground. The bottom of his world falls out when - against all faint hope he still had - out strides a figure, all in black. 

Kylo Ren. That’s what they call him. Kylo, Master of the Knights of Ren. 

He isn’t. He is.

Poe hasn’t seen him since the last vacation from training Ben took. They’d been timed specifically, so as not to cause a hormonal melt-down. Poe had even taken suppressants himself, so Ben wouldn’t have to, and they’d been chaperoned by a close-by droid at the most discreet of times. 

It hadn’t been a fun meeting. Ben wouldn’t even hug him, let alone hold hands. And okay, maybe they were too old for childish friendships, and too young for adult love, but he’d just wanted _contact_. Wanted to feel him, warm and alive and… happy.

Ben hadn’t been happy. He’d been anything but, and Poe wishes he’d known enough, back then. Known what was wrong, and how to save him. He doesn’t think Ben is - he - he knows Ben’s father, Han Solo, is sure his son is lost, but… 

No. He’s not. 

He’s… he’s…

_Cutting down Lor Sen Tekka and Poe can feel a weird sensation of hate in his gut. Loathing. Loathing directed towards Kylo Ren. He doesn’t understand it, doesn’t know why it’s happening, but he knows this **monster** killed Ben. _

_Tekka didn’t even say his name and the memories all come flooding back. Poe doesn’t know why he’s getting these weird flashes in his head, but it’s horrifying, and he knows he needs to do something. Anything. He knows he needs to kill Kylo Ren and he pulls the trigger and–_

The bolt stops in mid-air. Frozen by a gesture of leather-wrapped hand: the power of Kylo Ren’s will manifest and tangible. Poe can’t help but be impressed by this. Ben had been pretty good with basic Force-abilities, but he’s never done anything like this in front of Poe, before. It’s quite one thing knowing your beloved can read your mind and float the salt cellar over the table, another thing entirely watching them halt a deadly bolt in mid-air, and keep it suspended.

His eyes track it, as they tug him past, to stand in front of him. Keeping his gaze away from the other for as long as possible. Then he’s there, and someone brings a knee behind his own, a hand trying to shove him into genuflection.

Poe will not kneel. Not for this abomination. He staggers, then returns to his feet properly. He feels the rush of movement behind, but then Kylo Ren lifts a hand to stop them… and then lowers it.

This time, Poe has no _choice_ but to go down. To go to his knees, and to call out softly in shock. Ben… Ben never over-ruled his own body. But this isn’t Ben, is it? He glares up at the black expanse where eyes should be, the thin strip set in a permanent durasteel scowl. He’s not even got a vaguely human face, has he? No. It’s like something a droid would have. No eyes, no mouth, a flat plate like a hand gagging his speech. 

Kylo Ren drops to a crouch, making Poe wonder why the theatrics, anyway. He has the benefit of height when they stand, and when they’re like this, it’s lessened. Like this, they’re almost equals. You know, if you ignore the part where Poe’s held down by invisible mind control powers, and Kylo’s simply crouching.

Without his eyes, his face, his hands… it’s difficult to read him. To get an angle on him. To anticipate, or understand. That’s likely the point, but Poe feels more saddened than frightened by the layers and the mask. His poor Ben is under all of that, still, and the weight of it must be _crushing_.

“So. Who talks first?” he starts, with a little smile. “Do you talk first, or–”  


“The map.” Kylo’s head tilts, and it’s - a spark of memory. Ben, trying to understand something. Ben, wondering if he heard right. Ben.  


Even his _voice_ is wrong: filtered and falsified, and nothing about him is real, is it? Poe is tired of this. He’s tired of a lie put in his beloved’s shoes. Tired of a name that was never his, and a boy who he always loved… gone _missing_. 

He should never have let them take him.

“Let me go,” he says, soft, but sure.   


“And why should I do that?” Kylo asks, confusion not loud enough in his tone, almost as if he expects the verbal challenge.   


He doesn’t smell right. He smells of death and decay, like an omega cut off from themselves. He smells like he’s been boxed off, and it’s some small mercy that he doesn’t smell like someone _else_ got their grubby paws on him. Not that it would make Poe love him less, but more that he would want to kill whoever did it. 

Even like this, even swaddled in Darkness… he’s Poe’s Ben. And Poe loves him, and Poe always has. And Poe is so very, very done with pretending this is over. It will never be over. Not until one, or both of them dies. 

You only get one soul-mate. This one is his.

“Let me go, and come the hell home with me,” he insists. Still soft, but with power. With that Alpha command he rarely abuses. With the tone he never thought he’d need to use on Ben.  


But this isn’t Ben. This is Kylo Ren.

And that’s who he has to order about, to command, to force to obey. If Kylo will use the Force, Poe will use his Alpha strength to fight back. 

“You think you can - you think… you are stronger than the call of the Dark Side, pilot? You think you are anything other than a disposable source of information?” Kylo’s voice is less sure, now. Head going to the other side, gaze raking over him.   


“No, but I think our bond is. You stop this kriffing nonsense right the _hell_ now, and you come **home** , and we’ll work out the rest, after.”  


Kylo doesn’t smell right, but he’s still an omega. An omega in the presence of his mate. 

The air goes confusing around them, and there’s that hatred again… but Poe realises where it comes from, now: it comes from inside of the man before him. Such a horrible, overpowering sense of self-loathing.

Kylo Ren hates Kylo Ren. Or Ben hates him. Or - something! 

Something.

So he was right all along: there _is_ Light still left in him. Poe glares him down, and stands back upright, his power over _his mate_ allowing him to ignore the unspoken command to stay down. 

Poe Dameron glares at the hunched, confused form at his feet. “I said: **home**.”

The mask tilts up, the hood cascading around it, somehow defying gravity to keep him half-shrouded.

And Poe holds out his hand.


	4. Will he offer me his jaws?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe just wants Ben - Kylo - whoever he is - to come HOME.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon-equivalent interrogation/torture.

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?  
            Will he offer me his mouth?  
Yes.  
            Will he offer me his teeth?  
Yes.  
            Will he offer me his jaws?  
Yes.  


***

The first real intel they’ve had on the murderer Luke Skywalker in years. There was no way in the galaxy that Kylo wasn’t going to be the one to recover it. No way. The Jedi-worshipping cultists had made their fatal mistake in holding onto it, and the First Order (read: Kylo) was going to reap the crop.

Luke Skywalker. The _Jedi_ Master. Once his blood, but a traitor to his father and the Force itself. ~~A man who couldn’t protect his nephew.~~ A weak and foolish omega, tucking tail and running at the first whiff of danger.

Kylo Ren despises him. He cannot wait to watch his face as he is executed for his sins. 

As his ship skirts over the long-since-downed wreck of an Imperial Star Destroyer, coming in closer to whir sand under her thrusters, a strange sense of - of - _something_. Of connection. Kylo wonders if it’s the village. He - he knew them, once. Knew them well. He clamps down hard on the memory, the sensation, and barriers his mind higher than usual.

He won’t let nostalgia sway, or pause, his saber hand.

They come in to an uproar, and it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. Chaos fuels him. Fear, anger, disappointment… these are all powerful weapons in his arsenal. He can skim from their rage and impotence to make him more powerful. It’s a vicious circle, and one that always puts him on top. Where he belongs.

Where he’s always belonged.

The old man tastes strongest, and Kylo watches his braggadocio, his posturing, his lofty tone and words. They mean nothing. 

They mean nothing. Nor does the past he tries to bring to mind. A past that is gone, that is over. A him that once was, and now is more than. 

~~Ben~~ Kylo doesn’t miss it. When you grow, you mature, you throw away your childish notions and replace them with the real world. Tekka doesn’t see the things that Kylo can. He’s stuck in a past, a past without a future, and without power. The Dark is stronger than the boy had been, and the man is - is -

He does not have the map. He strikes him down, knowing his bleating will stop. Arcs through him, and severs another tie, trying to hold him down. A line with bait on, to reel him in.

A scream of red plasma, and then there’s another energy weapon in play. He stops it, without even thinking. Animal, hindbrain instinct kicking in, survival mode loud. He sights backwards along the trajectory, finding the muzzle and the hand behind the trig– the–

_Fuck_.

A man. Dark, tousled hair. Golden, glowing skin. Eyes he’d drowned in the sight of, and - and - 

Proud and stubborn to the last, Poe Dameron refuses to yield until Kylo slams him down with the Force. Slams him down and - that’s not _right_ \- drops to a crouch and…

Even now, he can still see the young man he’d been. Seventeen, the last time they saw one another. Poe on the verge of full adulthood, not the half-life of an early-presenting Alpha. Almost old enough to vote, to marry, and… Kylo remembers the utter sense of frustration. The not-real connection with a chemical fog and an audience to orchestrate their every interaction. It had felt hollow and not-right.

_He_ had felt hollow and not-right.

And he had known he could never be the man Poe Dameron wanted, and needed. The longer he’d spent training, the more it had become clear to him that the voice - the _Leader_ \- was right. Ben Organa-Solo was being broken into a shape that didn’t suit him, leashed and restrained by rule and regulation. He wasn’t allowed to be who he could be, and he would never be happy in their world.

Ben Organa-Solo had to die. 

Poe really has grown into the man he knew he would. His features filled, his jawline proud, his eyes still fierce and alive. He belongs where he is, and Kylo belongs where _he_ is. And curse his mother for sending him here. She had to know, didn’t she? She had to know the risk their paths would cross. Is it meant to intimidate him, or to upset him?

Kylo could kill him right here, right now. He could, as easily as he’d killed Tekka. He - he -

An exchange of words that almost doesn’t feel like his own tongue forms the sounds, and then he watches in open horror as Poe _gets to his feet_  and breaks his hold. A voice which is low and insistent; demanding his surrender, demanding his obedience without violence. Nothing like the _other_ voice. This one offers no _if you do not, then:_ after it. It knows he will obey, and he looks up at the man.

Darkness behind him, the flickers of fire casting copper tones across his cheekbones and dancing through his hair. He’s beautiful, but it’s more than just his physical form. He’s beautiful _inside_ , and that yearning, longing sensation… the pull in him, the Light that he can’t - or won’t - make go out…

Oh how easy it would be. He could take the hand and stand. He could fall into step behind him, and protect him as he’s protected in return. He–

Around them are more stormtroopers than he would like to count. Even a Knight of Ren might have difficulty fighting them all off, plus keeping Poe safe, and… he’s really thinking about this, isn’t he? He’s genuinely considering… is it the tone? Is it the fact it’s Poe? He…

“Put him on my ship,” he says.  


“Ben, don’t do this,” Poe says, and steps forwards again.  


Two troopers restrain him, then there’s a sudden flurry of movement as Poe defends himself with a savage urgency. Kylo gets to his feet and wipes silence into Poe’s mind. Distracted as he is, Kylo can make him sleep.

He can’t do anything here.

“Sir,” Captain Phasma says. “The map?”  


“That one is from the Resistance; Tekka would give him the map. I will interrogate him, personally.”  


“And the villagers?”  


“Deal with them.”  


***

Kylo refuses to let anyone else near the prisoner. No one. He pushes Hux’s questions away, and waits in the interrogation chamber, trying to work out what he does, next.

Poe. Poe Dameron. Half a lifetime ago since he last saw him, and it hurts to see his face. Hurts to see it, slack and dreamless. Someone cracked his temple, and blood had marred his skin, matted his hair. Because no one would know, Kylo had cleaned his wound, hating that he felt the need to, but unable to resist.

He shouldn’t be here, but Kylo has no excuse to let him go, to let him live. He’s an aberration, a fly in the ointment. He is as ill at home here, as Ben had– as–

Kylo reaches out to stroke against his mind. Not deeply, because he’s slumbering. It’s an unnatural sleep, and he tries to remind himself that dreams are unreal images, wants, memories. That they combine the thoughts with no artistry or logic, no purpose or intent. He tries, but he feels…

Feels the aching sadness hidden behind Poe’s smiles. The drive to find meaning, the need to make it matter. The terror that it doesn’t. The memory of a mother lost to the Greater Good, and a father who never forgave it. He’s got that strange tension of a deathwish, partnered with a desire to keep going, that Kylo recognises in himself. An empty feeling about the future, but a terror mixed with hope mixed with stubbornness that refuses to allow the end to come.

Poe is a broken man, as surely as he himself is. And what’s worst of all is _he did this_. He’s still staring at him when awareness creeps in; pain, first, then the other senses. Brown eyes blink at him, and Poe looks… resigned.

“Guess it’s too much to hope that we’re on an escape ship, huh? Although… unless you took flying lessons from the Dark Side, guess we’d be grounded in the attempt.”  


Even now. Even now.

“And you expected… what? Me to somehow defeat several squadrons of stormtroopers, and run away with you to find my uncle?”  


“…seemed like the best case scenario, yeah. Can you blame a guy for trying?”  


Kylo doesn’t even know what to say, and it’s rare anyone takes his tongue from him. He stares at Poe, and this whole situation is so bizarre, so impossible, so… out of his realm of control and influence that he has no idea how to proceed.

“Come home, Ben.” Even strapped to the chair, hurting and powerless, he won’t surrender.  


“That boy is gone,” he rasps back at him.  


“He doesn’t need to be.”  


But he is. “Where is the map?”

“Come with me, and we’ll go find your uncle, together, and ask for his help.”  


Anger, then, rising quick like the mercury in a thermometer above a stove. It floods through him and makes his head thrum. He couldn’t help, or Kylo wouldn’t be here. A slam of his mind against Poe’s, a hand raised in anger, and he forces–

–doesn’t… need to, because Poe isn’t resisting him at all.

He’s letting him in, leaning forwards in the chair, eyes on his own, through the visor. 

“Take off your mask,” Poe says, and Kylo staggers.  


He sees flashes of his face - how his face used to look - in Poe’s mind. Sees a worried boy, twisted out of shape. Sees despair and a fear and self-loathing that he remembers… remembers feeling…

Further back, and he is younger. No cares line his face, or none that show in the daylight. He’s a child. He’s young, free and innocent. He was happy, for a while. He was happy, before the voice. He…

Kylo’s breathing is hard. Poe doesn’t have the Force, but he has an incredible strength of will, and he knows - he knows Kylo, and… No. The Dark Jedi straightens up, lifts his hand, and slams Poe’s head backwards into the headrest with the Force. He pushes past the loud memories, and hisses: “Tell me where the map is.”

A flash of something, round and quick-moving. It blurs through the link, and Kylo tries to follow it, only to come up against a memory he isn’t in. The orange and white droid is there, and Kylo vaguely remembers it. It bumps against matching, orange-clad legs, bleeping and blooping in soft encouragement. 

Poe mumbles a ‘Not today, buddy,’ and turns away to lie on his bunk. He’s younger. He’s about the age when K– when Ben– when he left.

He can feel the aching hunger. Not a desire for sexual contact, just a need. A love. A sense of loss of something so vital as to make the worlds keep turning. Kylo remembers feeling it much younger, though he’d tried to hide it. He remembers living like a shadow, trying to find the Light and knowing shadow-people can’t survive in it. He remembers the way he cried himself to sleep for nights on end. How his body had been wracked with aching need, but more than that… more than that was just the need to feel his hands. His touch. His smile. To talk to him, to be near him, to be near the only person who made his world ever make sense, ever. He loved him before his body confirmed it. Their Presentation was just one more element to the tapestry that is how they should weave together, forever.

Ben loved him. Kylo still does.

“Th-the droid,” he stammers out, and he realises that Poe is crying.  


Poe. His Alpha. He’s letting silent tears gather in the corners of his eyes, like a fall of rain waiting for enough to join to break the surface tension and fall. He’s hurting him as much as he’s hurting himself. Why won’t he just stop caring?

Kylo is a _monster_. Heroes don’t love _monsters_.

“I won’t give in to you,” Poe whispers. “You’ll have to kill me, if you expect me to. Just make it quick, if you really don’t want to come home. You’ve been killing me slowly for too many years.”  


“I didn’t ask you to fall in love with me!”  


“I didn’t ask for it either!”  


Kylo fumes. Why did he have to go and bond with - with - someone as stubborn as Poe? Why?

“Maybe it would be better if I _did_ kill you,” Kylo spits.  


“Maybe it would.”  


But Kylo doesn’t want Poe dead, and he’s distressed in the extreme that either one of them is even considering it as an option. What else can he do, though? He has the map - or had it - and he’s Resistance, and the First Order… will demand his death, once he’s been drained of all intelligence and use. 

“Do you really _want_ to die, Poe? Is that why you’re whoring yourself out for those liars and traitors?”  


“Liars? Traitors? I don’t know what bantha-crap the Order’s been feeding you, but the Resistance is fighting for _democracy_. You know. Not _tyranny_ under a bunch of Human-centric racists!”  


This is wrong. You’re not supposed to debate politics with interrogation subjects. “You’re going to–”

“Fine. Kill me. Seriously, if you’re so set on this path? Kill me. Because I’d rather be _dead_ than have a **mate** who is so fucked in the head. But if there’s even one bit of you, one tiny bit, that wants something more? Wants…” A swallow, his whole throat taking in words, before they come back up and out. “…wants to be happy…”  


Back into his head, and Poe **screams** in protest. The pain arcs back into Kylo, and it’s impossible to block it out. The harder he hurts him, the more he staggers, the worse it gets. He throws in hate and vitriol and despair and fear and–

Kylo can’t hold up. He can’t. He can’t hurt Poe, and he pulls back as abruptly as he pushed in. Panting, and his helmet is clawing into his skull. The air is acid-thick, his whole skin crawling with disgust. His hands try to fumble for the clasps, but he can’t, and everything is so very, very **dark** and–

“Ben… Ben… Kylo? Listen to me. Listen to my voice.”  


Calming, soothing, but Kylo isn’t soothed. He’s hyperventilating, bordering on a full blown panic attack. He wants to grab his saber and swing through the air; wants to cut and slice and get back under control, but it’s all so distant and mucky. 

“Ben. Stand still. Hold still. Stop moving. Press your hands into fists and breathe when I say to.”  


All thought of disobedience is gone, and he forces his hands to follow the command. Poe counts out in, and out. In, and out. It’s still so dark inside his mask, but the uncomfortable dizziness has at least stopped spiralling higher, stabilising at the current level, but not abating.

“Put your hands up carefully to your helmet, Ben. Find where it closes. Don’t worry. You know where to press. You’ve done it hundreds of times. Let muscle-memory take over.”  


Calm, sure instructions and he feels better following them. He always feels better when he knows what to do. He finds the clasps, and the face-plate slides up. The mask is lifted and removed, and then his eyes meet Poe’s.

And there’s no way to hide the red, tear-streaked mess that is his face. Poe doesn’t look horrified, he looks… hurt, sad, and relieved.

“ _Tell me how I fix this_ ,” Kylo begs him. “I don’t know what to do.”  



	5. Will he offer me his hunger?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren's asked for his help. Only problem is, they're on the Finalizer, and Poe has... nothing but the clothes he's wearing. And his smile, obviously.

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?  
Will he offer me his mouth?  
Yes.  
Will he offer me his teeth?  
Yes.  
Will he offer me his jaws?  
Yes.  
Will he offer me his hunger?  
Yes.

***

_Tell me how I fix this._

Poe stares at a face that looks both old and young at once. The boy he was, barely grown, lost behind another face that’s seen years it cannot comprehend. He’s Ben, but Kylo, too. It’s strange for him to think that, but he does. 

Whatever he is, he’s still the same person. Hurt and confused and pulled between two Masters. Poe’s hand lifts - or… tries to. It checks against the restraint, and he nods towards it. “Little help with these, first, maybe?”

For a moment, he wonders if he’s gone too far. The feral look in the other man’s eyes is unmistakeable, and he could go one of two ways. Poe doesn’t breathe as he waits, but he has to do this. He has to push. He has to be brave, and try to do the dangerous, the unspeakable, the impossible. It’s only when you smash through your previous barriers that you see what you’re actually capable of.

A clicking, and the restraints about his wrists and ankles fall free. Poe pauses for just a second, then slips as gracefully as he can to his feet. He takes a step towards Ben - Kylo - and winces as the man takes a bigger step _back_.

“Hey,” he says, voice as calm and level as he can make it. “It’s okay.”  


A furious shake of his head, and the younger man’s hair is still as physics-defyingly beautiful as ever. It tumbles around his face, and he cringes smaller.

Like the hurt little omegas you saw, sometimes. The ones you _knew_ had been hurt. Who’d been taken advantage of, in some form or another. The ones you wanted to just wrap up in blankets, but weren’t sure if you’d be bitten in the process or not. Anger rushes through Poe, anger at the fact his Ben is that, now. A hurt thing, full of mistrust and distance. Even if no one’s… even if he hasn’t been _used_ in that sense, the Order has clearly been taking all they want from him.

Poe should have stopped it. He bites down on the inside of his lip, and tries not to let the anger flare in his eyes or posture. He’s supposed to take care of Ben, and he failed. He let them remove him, and then he let him fall further from the Light. Whether or not he was ‘old’ enough… his body had thought it was old enough to care for him. So any failing was on his head.

“It’s not. They will kill you.”  


Without the mask, his voice is so much different. A little deeper than before, yes, to match the taller frame; but it’s more human, more vulnerable. More… Ben. 

“They will _try_  to kill me, but hey: no one’s managed yet!”  


“They only need to manage _once_ ,” Kylo retorts.  


Which is good. Humour means he’s calming down. Poe’s been around enough shell-shocked and panic-stricken pilots to know a thing or two about talking them down.

“Okay. So: goal number one is to have neither of us die. Agreed?” He waits for the nod, before he proceeds. “Goal number two is to get _off_ this ship.”  


“And… then?”  


“And then we work out where we go next. I’m _hoping_ it involves a map and a Jedi, but I’m… prepared to negotiate, within reason.”  


Poe wanted to be the one to bring Luke Skywalker home, but he will most assuredly settle for Ben Organa-Solo and a _map_ to Luke. 

“I can’t go back with you.”  


“Why not?”   


“I… I can’t.”  


Poe wonders if now is the time for this, or if they should take it baby steps. Right now, the threat of someone else coming in and finding them like this is too high. He needs to get in a ship and off the Star Destroyer, and as far from here as possible. Well. After he gets BB-8. 

BB-8.

“How about… you get me off this ship, we get my droid, we fly somewhere _far_ away, and then we work out what we do?”  


“I can’t go _back_ , Poe!” Horror and terror in his voice, his stance curling in further, protectively.   


What the hell did that monster do to make him so afraid of his own family? Poe knows the Organa-Solo-Skywalker clan made mistakes, but he’s also certain with everything he _is_ that they wouldn’t go around hurting their youngest.

“Hey, hey! I’m not saying that. Hell, you want me to leave the Resistance? Once I get this map to them, I will.”  


That stops Kylo dead, and his head tilts comically, hair falling around him like water. 

“I swear it. You need me to? We run together. As far, and as fast as we can.” Poe would do it, too. He owes the Resistance and the Republic much, but maybe he’s given enough. Maybe finding Luke can be his last thing. He’d still happily keep flying for them, but if it’s them or Ben? Ben wins.  


“…this is a trap.”  


“A trap? Oh, would you listen to yourself? I fucking love you, you idiot. I always have, and _you_ always loved me back. And if you think I’m going to let **anything** but you stand in the way of us being happy?” He isn’t even aware he’s paced closer, until he’s right in the other man’s personal space.  


Kylo - inches taller - dressed in swathes of black - _shrinks_. His nostrils flare around ragged breaths, his hands creaking by his sides. 

“What do you say?” Poe offers, making sure he _chooses_ this, making sure he **wants** this. Not because he thinks the alternatives are any good, but because he’s not going to be the asshole forcing his mate into something, so they resent him, after.  


“We need to steal a ship.”  


Poe nods, and smiles. Yes. _Yes_. He grabs for Kylo’s wrist, keeping the contact gentle and unobtrusive, but needing it. He’s so hot under all those layers, radiating like mad. Poe wants so badly to kiss him, but that will have to wait. 

“You’re their trusted Dark Jedi. You broke me. I’m going to take you to the map.”  


Kylo’s eyes widen, and he nods.

“You’re going to take me to the map,” he echoes back.  


“Can you put the helmet back on, yet?” Not that Poe _wants_ him to, but because he _needs_ him to.  


“…yes. I…” His eyes take in the helm, and then go back to Poe. “You’re certain about this?”  


“I’m certain. You and me. We do this. We _do_ this.”  


And Kylo nods, and grabs his helmet. “We’re going to need a pilot. One that _isn’t_ you.”

***

Under the mask again, it’s hard to forget what the face below looks like. Poe wonders what first drove them to cover Ben’s - Kylo’s - beautiful face. Not like it matters if he’s beautiful or not to anyone but Poe, but why go to so much effort to conceal it? Is it to dehumanise him? To make him appear more dangerous? Or is it to cover over those worried eyes, that unsure mouth?

Poe’s cuffed, but he has to fight the urge to try and lean against him in lieu of a hug. He just wants to smother his giant omega and make him feel comfortable and safe, and…

On the other side of the door is a tall, red-headed officer. Poe’s eyes glance for rank and come back _General_. He almost walks into him, and then reminds himself he isn’t supposed to be bouncy and gleeful, but mind-controlled and subdued… and he lets his eyes glaze over in an approximation of someone whose will has been taken.

“Ren,” the man says, dripping contempt in his tone that makes Poe immediately want to break character and punch him in his nose.  


And maybe his gut. And then his kidneys. And… okay. Need to work on that anger response, he tells himself. He’ll feel less hostile in his protectiveness when they’re _away_ from the First Order. 

“What are you doing with the prisoner?” He feels the gaze rake from him to his beloved behind him, and it’s oh-so-very hard to not quip. Or worse.  


“He has information on the location of the map, and I am going to retrieve it.”  


“Why do you not pass the intelligence on to me, so I can dispatch my men?”  


“Because only he is capable of retrieving it, and none of your men are capable of controlling him, _General_.”  


Poe feels a thrill of surprise run through him. That tone - wow. He’s never heard Ben - or Kylo - be as commanding and forceful before. He almost - no he _does_ \- sound like a freaking Alpha when he talks like that.

Do the crew even know? They will be able to tell he’s on suppressants, yes, but do they know what kind? Is Kylo feigning Alpha prowess constantly? He has the build for it, and right now - even from behind - he pulls off the role of an angry, unmated Alpha all too well. Poe might even believe him, if he didn’t know better.

Ben had never really wanted to lead. Poe can look back, now, and see that. Ben had always been happy demurring (normally to Poe), and although he was intelligent, strong, brave and kind… he’d never let any of it get to his head. Although Ben might have been able to be an Alpha, it surely wasn’t ever going to satisfy him.

And doubtless, to progress, to maintain the respect and position he has… he’s been living a false life, under that mask, for fifteen years or so. That realisation stings. No wonder he’d freaked out about having his authority challenged in front of everyone else. 

“Very well, I will organise a–”  


“No need. The location is heavily protected. A second Jedi-worshipping enclave. It will require stealth to find the map, so I will take a small craft and one trooper. The fewer people, the easier to shield us.”  


Oh, but he’s good. Poe feels a swelling pride that, even with all this crap he’s had to deal with, his Kylo can put such a false face on when he’s under that mask. There’s odd tremors he can detect, but he doubts most would see past the proud posturing.

His mate is truly magnificent. 

“I see. Well. If you are sure the Supreme Leader would approve…”  


“He put _me_ in charge of Force-sensitive matters, General. Would you, or would you not, count Jedi-sympathisers and a map to the last Jedi Master as a _Force-sensitive matter_?”  


“Very well,” the man says, heels snapping somehow closer together. “I hope you retrieve it, this time.”

Poe feels a shove that isn’t physical at his back, and he starts walking obediently down the corridor. He wants to say something, but he can’t without giving the game away. He stops when the hand of power pushes at his chest, and there’s a stormtrooper ahead of them. Poe watches as it - he can’t tell their gender - wobbles visibly, momentum checked, not sure if it should go on, or retreat.

Behind him, he feels Kylo examine them. He’s not sure how he knows it, but he does. Maybe he just understands him?

“You. Can you fly?”  


“Me?” Male, then.  


“Do you see anyone else I may be speaking to?”  


Poe hasn’t ever actually had a conversation with a stormtrooper, himself, and he realises, now, he doesn’t fully know what they even - what their lives _are_. He’s never thought to ask, but this one is clearly on the verge of an existential crisis.

“No, Sir. I mean, Lord Ren.”  


Kylo growls. “Poe. Can you fly First Order vessels?”

“You kidding?” he asks, looking over his shoulder. “I can fly anything.”  


“Then you,” Kylo tells the trooper, “…are going to pretend you can fly us both, and Poe is going to do it, and we’re all going back to Jakku.”  


“…to… Jakku?”  


The poor man, Poe thinks. And then he wonders why Kylo is taking this one, if he can’t fly? He’ll ask when it’s safe to.

“Do you want to leave the First Order, or not?” Kylo Ren asks the man in white and black.  


Poe is close enough that if the other man wet himself at that, he’d be able to tell. It’s probably a close run thing, having a Dark Jedi accuse you of treasonous thoughts.

“Sir, I…”  


“You can work out the fine details later. But for now, you’re doing as I say, if you want to get off this ship alive.”  


Poe smiles. Trust Ben - Kylo - whoever he is - to run into a trooper on the edge of desertion. Maybe the Force sent him to them. This day is getting better by the minute. 


	6. Again, will he offer me his hunger?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back on Jakku, the trio go looking for BB-8.

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?  
              Will he offer me his mouth?  
                                                                             Yes.  
             

Will he offer me his teeth?  
                                                                             Yes.  
             

Will he offer me his jaws?  
                                                                             Yes.  
             

Will he offer me his hunger?  
                                                                              Yes.  
             

Again, will he offer me his hunger?  
                                                                              Yes!  


***

No one else aboard the _Finalizer i_ s Force-sensitive, which Kylo is infinitely grateful for. If they were, he’s not sure he could shield his current panic from them. The mask and vocoder do enough for the superficial, but anything deeper and he - or Poe - or the trooper - would surely be uncovered.

They get into a small shuttle, and Kylo tells Poe to walk the trooper through pre-flight checks and clearance so the First Order hangar staff will see the right man behind the cockpit controls.

He watches with some strange, detached interest: it’s almost as if it’s happening to someone else, instead of him. This morning, everything had been fine. Now? Now he’s running away from the First Order after a man he hasn’t seen in a decade and a half, and he’s stolen a vocationally challenged stormtrooper.

It’s beyond insane. It really is. 

Poe tells the trooper what to say over the intercom, and then they are off, and out, and away.

Off the Star Destroyer, but still on one of Hux’s ships. Half way to freedom.

“Okay, so,” Poe says, when he swaps seats with the other man, taking over now no one can see through their viewport. “I’m Poe. Poe Dameron, I guess you know of my - my mate, Kylo?”  


Mate. He’s using the term, and they haven’t even… they haven’t sealed the union, or even made an attempt at consummation. It sets a strange, pooling heat in his core, sloshing around inside when the ship moves, like the levels inside a glass that’s twirled in your hand.

If he goes through with this, if they get out of this alive… they will, won’t they? Be real mates. Honest ones, not boys who love to spend their time together, and not older boys prevented from just that, and not adults spent drugged to the eyeballs to keep the craving need to meet and unite at bay.

Even through the suppressants, Kylo’s felt it. A slight dampness he loathes in his boxers, and a resigned need for padding just to catch and perfume over the worst of it. A monthly dip in his mood, when he found himself most often drawn to memories long rejected and denied. He hated how his body wanted Poe, hated how it tried to dictate his path for him. Even knowing Poe would love and respect him, it’s one thing to choose your mate and enjoy your life with them, and almost terrifyingly powerless when the galaxy is pushing you inexorably into his arms. Around Poe, he’s always felt like it’s the only possible outcome. He should just be grateful that Poe is a good man.

“Uhm, by reputation,” the trooper says, sounding utterly baffled and nervous. “Which is why this? What **is** this?”  


“Defection,” Kylo says, sparing Poe the need to tiptoe around the issue. “You were going to attempt it, anyway, weren’t you?”  


Silence. 

Poe jumps in, mercifully. “It’s okay, uh… what’s your name?”  


“FN-2187.”  


“FN… the hell kind of name is that?”  


“The only one I got given.”  


“Well, from now on… Finn. You’re Finn. Meet Kylo, and me, and we’re all gonna get my droid then get as far away from the First Order as we can, y’hear?”  


Taking control so easily, Kylo sees. For once, he doesn’t feel the need to butt heads with ano– with an Alpha. Maybe because he’s _his_ Alpha, or maybe because he’s doing things Kylo agrees with in the first time in forever.

It’s refreshing, not to have that tension. Not to be aggravated by the slightest show of aggression or power around him. He doesn’t know if it’s his fake-Alpha persona talking when that happens, his frustrated missing of Poe, his disagreement with their goals or means, or… something else entirely.

“…why did you break me out?” Finn asks.  


“You wanted a second chance,” Kylo tells him. “This is it.”  


The galaxy owes more of those, across the board, he thinks.

***

Planetside, they land near the first sign of civilisation in the direction Poe says his droid went, when he sent him away with the map. They’re just planning to scour the vast desert until they find him. As they approach, Kylo realises he can feel something in the air, and he looks over to the other two.

“There’s a Force-sensitive. Here.”  


“…One of yours?” Poe asks.  


“Someone I… don’t know,” he admits. “I can’t tell if they are Jedi or not, but…”  


“We’ll find out.”   


It could be either very, very good… or very, very bad.

***

In the remnants of an old, downed AT-AT there’s a girl. She’s young - twenty, maybe, at most - dressed in simple, protectively pale layers that cover her almost entirely from the elements. A droid circles around her feet, even as she holds her staff in two hands. The astromech reels off a long set of interrogation-style questions, demanding to know what it should do, now Kylo Ren is here.

“BB-8,” Poe tells it, and takes steps closer, crouching and ignoring the wave of staff threatening violence. He has his hands up, and Kylo watches his mate even calm a damn droid down. “It’s okay. Kylo’s with me. We came to get you back to the base.”

“Who are you?” the woman asks.   


“We’re… here for the droid,” Kylo replies.   


“Well, you can’t have him.” She glances down at the astro. “…he says you kidnapped his master.”

“He did, but he broke me out,” Poe says, from his crouch. “And Finn here. We’re on the run from the First Order.”  


“…yeah,” Finn says. “We’ve broken out.”  


“I’m with the Resistance,” Poe says, standing up.   


Kylo holds back, as the others negotiate. He’s less sure of himself, here. He thinks anything he… wait. He pulls off the mask, buttons and servomotors and a tangle of dark hair, and puts it under one arm. “Kylo,” he says, remembering that without a name or a face, he’s much more intimidating. “Poe, and Finn.” 

Seeing the Dark Jedi do that, Finn takes his off, too. 

“…Rey,” she says, and the end of the staff dips a little. “So you’re… all with the Resistance?”  


“…kind of,” says Poe. “I am, and the other two are… well. Not First Order.”   


BB-8 asks if it’s a trap.

The pilot shakes his head. “Buddy… buddy… Shara. Okay? Shara.”  


Kylo smiles. His mother’s name. The perfect word to say he feels safe, and that he’s not under duress. Kylo approves once more of his partner’s resourcefulness, and it hurts to think he even needs that word around him. But - for everyone else - of course they think he needs it. Only Poe would ever be convinced of his trustworthiness. 

BB-8 looks up to Rey, then nods its central dome in acknowledgement.

Rey puts the staff end all the way to the sand. “If you want to escape the First Order, you need to do it in another ship.”

***

Rey and Finn walk a bit ahead of them, Rey leading the way towards Niima Outpost. She insists there’s ships there they can purchase, though Kylo doesn’t have the heart to tell her they have no money and he’s going to have to Force their way off-world. He makes a mental note that he’ll ensure adequate recompense comes the way of whoever they rob, and then wishes people would hide on planets with less heat.

Black is a great colour, but it absorbs all the light, and it means he’s burning up in his robes. At least he has his helmet off, but that also means the sun hits his face and scalp. He’s going to burn, and there’s no two ways about it.

Finn has stripped most of his armour off, but there’s not much Kylo can do about his. Plus, he doesn’t want to. He feels - usually - safer dressed like this.  

Holding back, he figures Poe wants to talk to him, with a little more privacy.

He was right, because Poe starts speaking, low and insistent, the minute they are far enough back. “BB-8 has the map. Once we get off here, and get Finn to the Resistance, too, we can work out what you want to do, next. If I give them the map, that’s pretty much me square with them.”

Kylo thinks about that. He does. It sounds an interesting prospect, but… “It’s in your blood, Poe. You’ve always wanted to be a pilot.”

“I can fly elsewhere.”  


“You won’t be happy. You wouldn’t be able to fly for the Republic, not now. And - well. It’s in your blood.”  


“So are you.”  


Poe’s voice is fierce, then, and the power behind his tone makes him smile, just slightly. “Maybe, but I’m not going to be responsible for keeping you from something you love.”

“Yeah, but if you keep _you_ from me, you do just that, Ben.”  


That name. That old name. It feels… weirdly right on Poe’s tongue, after years of denying it, when he heard it whispered around him in gunmetal corridors by people who had never once seen his face.  

“Look,” the pilot continues. “I spent the last **twenty years** without you really in my life, and it’s been hell. It has. I’ve hated it. So I _know_ what giving you up would feel like, and I’m not doing it again. So either you come back with me, or I go with you, wherever it takes us. Hell. We could get a ship and work as mercs, if it came to it.”  


Kylo laughs. “Like my father?”

“Why not?”  


Lots of reasons, but he won’t go into them, not now. “I can’t go back. After what I did, I can’t. It’s too late for that.”

“It isn’t. Believe me, it isn’t. If you go back with me, with this map, and you show them that you want to help…” Poe pauses. “You want to help, right?”  


And Kylo laughs again, but this time it’s more complicated. “If you’re asking me if I believe in the First Order’s plan: then no. If you’re asking me if I would like to be free of the Supreme Leader: then yes. If you want me to actively have a stance other than… rejection… I don’t know that I can. Not yet.”

“Well… rejection is enough to start with. Come… come back with me to hand in the map. Then… if you want to run straight off, we can. If you want to run away for a _bit_ to make up your mind, we can.”  


“I’ll… I’ll think about it.” And he will. Kylo knows full well that he disagrees with a lot of Snoke and the Order’s policies, but he literally just walked off a Star Destroyer, and he’s not sure what his own politics really are, right now. “I’ll think about it.”  


His options are pretty limited, right now, anyway. He can’t go back to the Order, and he won’t. If he did, he’d be broken back in hand for his little act of defiance, and he can’t face that. He needs to survive, and he has next to no marketable skills. He’s pretty much screwed without Poe, and that is terrifying on its own.

***

They get to Niima as the TIEs start to zoom about overhead. Kylo hisses in anger. It won’t be long before they start on bombing runs, if they’re not careful.

“How did they find us so fast?” Finn asks, sounding worried.  


“The Supreme Leader,” Kylo mutters, darkly. “He must have sensed my disloyalty. We need to find a ship, and fast.”  


He turns, as Poe isn’t replying. Poe seems oblivious to everything around until… he follows his gaze and sees a familiar ship.

Oh, no. No, no, no. 

“That’s _her_ , isn’t it?” Poe asks.

He could lie, but what’s the point?

“We need a co-pilot,” Poe continues, his voice still terribly torn. “Can’t really fly the _Falcon_ without one.”  


“That’s the _Millennium Falcon?”_ Rey asks. “That?”  


“The Rebellion ship?” Finn adds.  


“The **smuggler’s** ship?” Rey corrects him.  


“Both,” Kylo says. “And my father’s vessel. Looks like the Force is giving me one hell of a push to something.” He eyes Rey, wondering if she _knows_ , yet. If she has the slightest inkling that she’s Force-sensitive, too. He watches for a reaction, but mostly it’s about the ship.  


“You’re Han Solo’s son?”  


“For my sins, yes.”  


“Do we really need two pilots?” Finn asks.  


“You’ve got two. I mean. If you had one…” Rey bites her lip. “I can fly, too.”  


Of course she can. 

“Poe… how is the Resistance’s moral code on stealing ships back that _technically_ belong to the General’s husband?” Kylo asks.  


“They pretty much **insist** as a matter of personal honour.”  


“Then it’s a good job we found it.”  


***


	7. And will he starve without me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aboard the Falcon, it's not long before company arrives.

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?  
Will he offer me his mouth?  
                                                     Yes.      

Will he offer me his teeth?  
                                                     Yes.      

Will he offer me his jaws?  
                                                     Yes.

Will he offer me his hunger?  
                                                     Yes.      

Again, will he offer me his hunger?  
                                                     Yes!      

And will he starve without me?  
                                                     Yes! 

***

“I’m _trying_ , but something’s got a lock on us!” Poe hisses, slamming at the buttons as the bigger craft swallows them whole. “Damnit all to… okay. We’re being pulled in. I can’t get an ident off the craft, and I doubt they’re friendly.”  


“We also aren’t likely to be able to hold them off,” Kylo says, dusting himself off from the impromptu repairs he and Rey just finished. “Depending on their numbers. I can control some, but not if we’re over-run.”

“So what’s our play, here?” Finn asks.  


Poe looks to Kylo. Kylo nods, the message received and understood. “We take a leaf out of Kylo’s dad’s book. We hide in one of the smuggling compartments - one that’s shielded from scanners - and we bide our time until we can escape.”

“You sure we’ll be able to hide?” Finn asks.  


“My father got things past the Empire in this ship,” Kylo snaps, huffily. “We’re going to be just fine, if you all do exactly as I say.”  


***

They split up, Finn and Rey pushed into one compartment; Kylo, Poe and BB-8 in another. Tactical, Kylo had said. Means if one compartment is compromised, the other isn’t.

Probably right, but might also, Poe thinks, be linked to him not wanting to be boxed in with two complete strangers. Which was fair enough. He watches as Kylo tries every trick under the sun to fit his too-tall frame in, and then…

“Just… put your legs under mine,” Poe suggests. “I’m not going to ravish you over ankle contact.”  


“You might.”  


“True, but not when it could land us up dead, or slaves. I have _some_ sense of decorum.”  


Poe lifts his legs, and Kylo tucks his sideways, slotting into place awkwardly around him. It’s not how he figured their first cuddle would go, with an elbow against durasteel and his body contorted out of shape, but it’s really just par for their course.

He arches an arm, and… after a pause… Kylo moves to put his head on Poe’s shoulder. It’s nice, holding him. Still uncomfortable in position, but nice to have him close. He breathes in the scent of his hair, and strokes gently over Kylo’s shoulder. If it weren’t for the imminent danger, he might even tolerate the pins and needles he’s feeling for the opportunity to just _hold_ his beloved.

“I missed this,” he whispers.  


“Me too,” Kylo agrees. “I h–” His lover startles, all at once.  


“What is it?”  


“Han Solo is here.”  


“On the ship? How?”  


“The freighter that swallowed us whole? Want to lay odds he’s the one that spotted us and tractored us?”  


“Son of a… well! Now we’re saved! Let’s get–” Poe halts, when he sees the fear in the other’s eyes.  


“I… I can’t. Poe…”  


“…you… oh. Ben, it’s okay. Believe me, he’ll be over the moon to see you again. Especially with his ship! And a map to your uncle!” He grabs his shoulder, squeezing tightly.   


“No, I…”  


Ben keeps clamming up, and Poe doesn’t know how best to help him, so he leans in and pecks a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Tell me. Please, Ben. Tell me what it is, so I can help?”

“I can’t go back, because everyone knows what I’ve done. And even if they didn’t know, _I would_.”  


“Okay. So. You did bad things, right?” He waits for the nod. “Do you feel bad that you did them?” A fiercer nod. “Do you want to, maybe, stop doing bad things?”  


“It isn’t that simple.”  


“Isn’t it? That’s the start of it.”  


“You can’t just… walk away from the Dark Side!”  


“Then you _run_ from it. Or fly. Or I pick you up and carry your ass back myself.” Poe sighs. “I get that I don’t understand the Force stuff, but I’m prepared to help you out. I am. With everything I have. I let them take you away last time, and maybe I couldn’t have helped you, then, but I’m damned if I won’t try _now_.”  


“The… Poe… the Supreme Leader…”  


“He can kiss my short ass.” Poe stops, as the sound of the doors opening cuts the air. “Later. For now… you come with me, and you say ‘sorry’ to your dad, and then we see what happens, and you’ll get first-hand proof of how many people will welcome you home the minute you decide to come back to it.”  


Ben’s eyes are wider, and he nods, dumbly.

“Trust me, this one time. Trust me, and if it doesn’t work…” Poe doesn’t know what he’d do. He sure as hell hopes Han Solo is still a good enough man to realise a repentant one when he sees one.  


***

“Chewie, we’re…”   


Poe watches from just to the side as Kylo steps around the corner. Unmasked, head lowered, posture meek. It isn’t omega-deference, it’s a child who knows they’ve done things wrong. Poe knows it, but so does Kylo, and Han. 

“B-Ben?”  


The tall man nods, just slightly, swaying nervously on his feet. 

“You…”  


“I… I… ran… away,” he says, his voice small and soft.   


“From that damned Order?”  


More swaying, and Poe wonders if he’ll faint. He steps in closer, a hand against the small of his back. He’s ready to support him, if he does.

“I… I… didn’t… I thought it was too late, Dad, I…”   


The name, the term, breaks through the last barrier, and then Ben is a sobbing wreck. Han runs right over, just as Poe grabs him by the waist. Somehow they both end up holding him, and then a very tall Wookie roars and comes over to join in.

Poe isn’t about to let go, even when they hear some plates sliding back and… oh, yeah. Maybe they should have told Rey and Finn?

“What’s going on?” Finn asks.  


“What’s going on? I just got my boy back,” Han says, his voice utterly in shreds.   


Poe… Poe just smiles. He should never have doubted Han, even with Ben’s reticence. Of course he missed him, of course he wanted him back. They stay holding one another like that for a few minutes more. Until… until there’s a clunking sound. And then he pulls back in alarm. “Han?”

“…kriffing Rathtars…”  


***

Three Rathtars, two gangs, one firefight, several expletives and one start of a hyperspace jump later… Poe drags his mate off by the hand. He nods politely at the others, and takes Ben as far away from them as he can. Takes him all the way to one of the wide shipping compartments, and sits on one of the thick, protruding sections, patting the space beside him.

Ben moves to sit there, and this time he doesn’t hesitate to sit close by. Poe smiles, and keeps their fingers laced. He drops his head onto Ben’s shoulder, and wriggles in close to his side.

“Was it as bad as you thought?” he whispers.

“Worse,” Ben complains. “But… you were right, that I needed to do it.”  


“They’ll forgive you, you know. If you mean it. If you want to change.”  


“I… I do.”  


“Then you can,” Poe insists. “You can, and we’ll help you. Me, your family, my whole squadron…”  


Ben laughs. “A squadron?”

“Well, more than one, if I want to really pull rank…”  


“Poe…” Ben bites his lip, and his hand grips tighter. “I’m afraid.”  


“Want to know a secret? So am I. But that’s not going to stop me. Nothing is going to stop me. I am going to break myself in two before I ever let anything happen to you, again.”  


“Promise?”  


“Promise.”  


Which is when Ben turns his head, and Poe is surprised to feel a gentle press of lips to his own. Ben kisses soft and sweet, almost like he remembers on his cheek or forehead. It still sends a weird, spiralling heat into him, but Poe has to take this slowly, too. He kisses him back, from one side of his smile to the other, and his free hand reaches over to touch Ben’s knee. Not trying to initiate anything further, just wanting to be as close as possible while they share their first, real kiss.

It’s heartbreaking, and Poe wants to kiss him harder, but he doesn’t dare. It’s just… it’s just so lovely, and when they break to stare at one another, he can see the open longing in Ben’s eyes.

It isn’t heat-puddled, because he’s clearly on so many hormonal blockers that he’d be surprised if he could even get the slightest bit slick for him, but it’s just as doting and caring. Poe’s heart hurts.

“I love you,” he whispers.  


“I love you, too.”  



	8. And does he love me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> D'Qar.

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

        Will he offer me his mouth?        

Yes.        

        Will he offer me his teeth?        

Yes.  
       

        Will he offer me his jaws?        

Yes.        

        Will he offer me his hunger?        

Yes.        

        Again, will he offer me his hunger?        

Yes!        

        And will he starve without me?        

Yes!        

        And does he love me?        

Yes.        

_Yes._

***

They go back to the base. They’ve lost the big ship, and all that’s left is the _Falcon_. Plus his father, his uncle Chewie, the ex-trooper Finn, the Force-sensitive (unaware) Rey, and the astromech droid. With a map. To his other uncle. _Luke Skywalker._ So, not a total failure.

When they get there, Kylo is surprised by how positive the reception is. Maybe it’s because of Han, Chewie, Poe and the map, but he isn’t shot on sight. He’s treated warily, but that’s all. At least until his mother sees him. She takes one look, runs over, and hugs him all over again.

Kylo is not used to so much contact. Before he found Poe again, he can’t remember the last time anyone did more than glance against him, unless it was a spar or a real fight. He feels strange towering over her, and stranger still when she insists they all sit down and talk.

Yes, including the two new ones. One of whom Leia breaks the Force-sensitivity issue to, when Kylo confirms he hasn’t. He doesn’t hang around for the fallout. Once he’s given them the superficial intel (including about the _Starkiller_ ), he retires and lets Finn do the most of that. Kylo hadn’t really been too involved with the project, finding it distasteful. His mother agrees he can continue the rest of the debriefing, later, when they know what questions to ask him.

He makes his excuses, and Poe is smart enough to make his own. Or… well. Not excuse. He tells them he’s going to look after Ben. That old name again, and he rolls it around in his mind. Poe tells them that, and no one objects, or pulls them apart, or tells them they _can’t_. It’s… liberating.

“You okay?” Poe asks him.  


“No. But I might soon be,” he admits.  


***

Poe guides him away from the main concourse and landing zone, away from war tables and mechanics and medics and droids. Kylo follows, all too willingly, wanting the distance. Needing it.

They slip into an obviously empty block of housing. Kylo wonders if their numbers have thinned and left them bare, or if they’re here in case their complement swells. One is positive, the other… less so. He knows which he’d prefer, and he knows which is more realistic, too.

“You okay with me staying with you?” Poe asks.  


“Why wouldn’t I be?” Which is Kylo for ‘please do not go’.  


A wry, knowing smile. “Okay. If I get too in your way…”

Kylo nods, though Poe couldn’t. Even if he stood between him and his toothbrush. For one thing, Kylo could just use the Force to get his toothbrush, then. 

Poe pauses, then goes to sit on the long couch. Kylo doesn’t hesitate to join him, sitting next to him. He smiles when Poe puts his arm up on the back of the headrest, and scoots in to press against the pilot’s side.

He’s a bit tired of everyone else touching him, on edge and jittery when they do, but with Poe he never feels awkward or uncomfortable. He puts one hand on Poe’s knee, and pushes his head onto his mate’s shoulder. Eyes closing, he just enjoys the closeness.

“I gotta ask you something,” Poe says, and he sounds apprehensive.  


Kylo keeps his head where it is, but nods. “Okay.” 

“…why… Kylo?”  


“Why what?”  


“No, I mean: why ‘Kylo’,” he asks again, the emphasis changing, subtly. “Why did you change your name?”  


Oh. “The Supreme Leader wished me to cut my ties to my family, and to… intimidate, more. He also likely didn’t want me to feel connected to who I had been. It was forbidden to use my birth name.”

“Do you… mind when I do?”  


“It feels strange, but… not unpleasant, when it’s you. Or my family. I… don’t know if I want to _be_ Ben, not… to everyone. But with you, it’s alright, I guess…”  


That seems to satisfy him, and Kylo feels soft little kisses hit his hair. His face still stings from the Jakku sun, but the Bacta-wash the medics put over him helped. He lets out a tiny little purr of contentment, vibrating gently under the affection, as his eyes close to lap up the affection.

“I’m so glad I got you back,” Poe tells him, and the arm on his shoulder caresses him in tiny circles. “So damn glad. It’s been awful without you. I’m not letting you go, ever again.”  


Kylo swallows. “Even… even knowing what I did?”

“…you did bad things, Ben, but so have I. Most under the banner of ‘war’, true, but… you can be more than what you did before. I believe that.”  


A little nod, and he turns to fully wrap arms around him, needing to hold him tightly, needing him to understand with touch what he doesn’t have words for. “I don’t deserve you, but I’m sure as hell glad I have you.”

A finger, bent, under his chin. It requests he lifts his head, and he does. All he sees in Poe’s gaze is love and compassion, and it kills him. It kills him, to think he can have that, still. That he can be forgiven, and loved. He wants to look away, but he daren’t. It’s a torture all of its own, but he deserves the punishment of forgiveness. His breathing stops, and then Poe pulls him up higher, and he finally lets his eyes drift shut as they kiss.

He lets Poe lead, to start off with. He initiated, so it’s only right he sets the tone. Their lips barely touch to begin with, and Kylo loves how soft Poe’s are against his own. Soft, and sweet. He hisses a tiny breath when Poe tugs his lower lip from his own teeth, and pulls at it. It feels weirdly good, and there’s a low, spreading warmth in him. Kissing is so bizarre, but he feels closer to him than he ever has. There’s a hand cradling his head, now, in his hair and fingertips on his scalp as a gentle push of tongue makes him open up, giddy and confused.

Poe’s tongue is firm and soft at the same time, and it tastes so perfectly of him as it thrusts into his mouth, sliding against his own. It makes him think about other things entering him, and he realises he… he wants that. And he can’t. And he pulls back, suddenly sad.

The hand stays in his hair, but Poe doesn’t force any more kissing. “What is it, babe?”

“I… you… you know Snoke had me… medicated?”  


He watches as Poe bites his lip in, and he hates the look of fury and disappointment on his mate’s face. “Yeah. I figured. But no more, unless… you want more.”

“…I… no. I just… the things he had me on? They stopped my heats. And I don’t know if… if he damaged my cycle with them. You know the powerful stuff can… stop. An omega. Forever.”  


Because at the time, Kylo had been happy at the prospect of never being reduced to a sex-crazed, sticky, baby-carrying wreck. He’d also not wanted to lock himself up once a month to conceal it, or to have to fight off potential suitors. Now… how could he ever satisfy Poe? The heats were what made it worth doing, right? And the babies. Kylo doesn’t want to think about the _baby_ part at all.

“Ben, if… and this is a **big** if… he’s damaged your cycle, I’m not gonna stop loving you. And if it takes months before you go properly into heat, then it takes months. But I love _you_ , not you once a month, or what you can do in bed. Besides… you know there’s plenty we can do without a heat, don’t you?”  


Theoretically he does. Betas don’t have a super-charged week of physiological imperative. Two Alphas _rut_ together. But he’s neither, and he’s not a very good omega if he can’t do the one thing expected of him. He nods, reluctantly.

“Won’t I disappoint you?”  


“You? You could smack my dick with a saucepan and - on the floor in agony - I’d still love you.”  


“…I have zero intention of harming you, Poe.” But the image makes him smile, and Poe smiles back, and it feels a little less intimidating.

“Relax, babe. I… do you trust me?”  


“With my life.”  


“I wanna show you how good we can feel, even when it isn’t that time. Because we don’t just have to do it when your body screams for it.”  


“You… you mean… you don’t want to wait?”  


“…only if you do. But if we do… if we enjoy other things, first, you won’t be so tense and anxious about your first heat, and it will come more naturally and feel better.” Poe kisses his nose. “If you’re ready for it. I wanna show you how _good_ we can have it.”  


And here was Kylo thinking Poe wouldn’t want damaged goods. Although it had always been the ‘thing’, that an omega and their mate would consummate the first time in mutual heat and rut, he knows plenty of omegas enjoy other things with either their mate or bedmates beforehand. But that’s knowing in theory, and not in practice. In a way, being in heat would take some of the edge off his nerves, force him into acting, break through the barrier of ‘never have I ever’… but this? Can be more of a choice. He can say yes, or he can say no. His body won’t force him despite himself, and it… it’s supposed to feel good and help deepen bonds, isn’t it?

“Okay. If… if you… don’t… I mean, I haven’t, so don’t… don’t…” Kylo’s tongue pokes past his lips.  


“I haven’t, either. We can learn together, Ben.”  


A deep, slow breath and he nods. “Okay.”

“Okay.”  


Poe turns, then, so he’s almost facing him. Hand on the side of his face, and he smiles a little shyly. Ben hadn’t thought that maybe Poe would be nervous, too, and he finds it sweet and endearing. The kiss this time is more stuttery, but still good. Poe kisses from one side of his mouth to the other, and Ben giggles gently. He burns where the hand holds him, and he puts his own hand up as high on Poe’s inner thigh as he can. He opens his mouth to Poe’s questing tongue, then curiously pushes his back, too. Poe’s mouth is warm and wet, and he licks over his teeth and swallows down the soft moans of pleasure.

Ben isn’t really wet, not properly, not - not _unashamedly gushing_ \- but he can feel a little of it between his legs when he breathes. Just a mild, sticky sensation that leaves him hopeful that maybe his body isn’t completely broken and useless. As long as he can get himself at least a little slick and open, then he should be satisfying enough for Poe, right?

More than that feeling is the one between his legs. The hormones he’s on only remove fertility and the natural breeding cycle, but a male omega’s secondary sexual organs, their cock and balls, still supposedly work. He can feel a building warmth, and a stirring restlessness there as they kiss. Even if it turns out he can’t climax and ejaculate, he thinks the current sensations are more than enough to make it worth trying this. If Poe’s ego won’t be battered by a lack of completion on his own part, anyway.

The kiss to the mouth breaks, and Ben is delighted by the sudden flurry of them at the side of his jaw, and down his neck. Shuddering, he bares his throat accordingly. There’s a hint of teeth in the kisses, but no bite, not yet. Normally that happens during the first, real mating, so he isn’t sure if Poe will wait or not. After all, he’d been threatening it way back when, and the anticipation is _killer_. He braces himself, and starts to shakily unbutton Poe’s shirt with his fingers. He saw him naked plenty when they were younger, but never once they passed the veil of innocence. His hands don’t want to work, but somehow he gets it open at the front, and then Poe is shrugging out of it, and he’s bare from head to waist. 

Ben lets his fingers wander over the warm, firm expanse of his chest, and scratches lightly with his nails. Poe hisses against his jugular, and starts to suckle in earnest, the sensation making Ben’s pants tighter and tighter. A lave of tongue over too-sensitive skin, and he lightly pinches at one nipple to see what reaction that gets him.

It’s a good one, if the way he’s suddenly thrown backwards onto the couch is anything to go by. Poe moves to straddle him, his hands tugging Ben’s own clothing apart. He has so many layers that Poe gets frustrated, and sits up to peer down at him. “Would it kill you to have a zip, or buttons?”

“I wasn’t dressing to be undressed,” he replies, with bemusement.  


“Could we maybe do that bit, while we can still think?”  


Ben swallows, then nods. He knows he’s nothing like Poe to look at. He’s tall, rangy, and latticed with translucent scars from fights long-healed. He’s pale like a man who never sees the light, and he’s… not like a typical omega. But Poe has never cared, so he nods again. They work together, and it’s a bit awkward until he sits up. Black fabric joins Poe’s shirt, and then they’re both just in pants and boots. Which is, apparently, satisfactory. He’s guided back down, and when he looks up, his mate’s eyes are dark with hunger.

“ _Maker_ ,” Poe breathes, his tone awe-struck.

“What?”  


“Do you have any idea how **beautiful** you are, Ben?”  


“…uh…”  


His answer is felt through his skin as Poe kisses at his neck again, and Ben decides to reach around and feel those shoulderblades under his skin. So hard he could cut his hand on them, and he digs his nails in as Poe grinds and rocks them together. The heat in his groin - not _heat-_ heat, but **need** -heat - is ever increasing, and he wraps his legs around Poe’s. 

“N-not as beautiful as you are,” is his delayed response. The hands on his shoulders sort of making thought too hard. That and the very, very obvious thing he can feel trapped between them. Or… two things. Two… very much hard dicks.   


Ben is trying so very, very hard not to flip out over that. So very, very hard. No pun intended in the slightest.

Poe lifts himself up onto one arm, and then - kisses over his mouth again - he curls his palm and fingers around Ben’s crotch. Ben _screams_ into Poe’s mouth, and starts to grind with all he has into it. He feels the tickle of laughter, and he looks up in betrayal.

“What?”  


“You worried you wouldn’t perform or enjoy this?” Poe’s hand tightens, and Ben bucks again. “Think you’re pretty much as Alpha as me right now.”  


“I don’t want to _fuck_  you, though.” He doesn’t think, anyway.  


“Alright. So we’re betas. Fact is, I want you, and you want me, and screw everything else.”  


Ben likes the sound of that. He also likes the sound that happens when Poe’s fingers slip in through joins of fabric, when they wrap around his cock and pull it out. It’s most certainly ready: full, flush, hard and throbbing. It rubs into Poe’s palm, and Ben wonders if he should be doing the same thing? He arches up to bite at Poe’s neck, and sinks his teeth in, in a mock claiming-bite of his own. That makes Poe _growl_ in pleasure, and Ben smirks and sucks as hard as he can.

He might not be an Alpha, but he wants to lay a claim all of his own. 

Ben reaches and fiddles and fumbles until he can get Poe’s cock out, and then they’re both holding one another’s dicks. And Ben has his mouth full of Poe’s neck, and there’s harsh breathing in his ear. Ben feels the strange, nice weight of his firm shaft, and he starts to stroke it. It glides, and it feels odd, but it also feels good because he can sense how much Poe is enjoying this through the Force. Can sense it, but also hear it in the ragged way his breathing breaks, and feel the way the hand on his own cock goes less even.

The hand on _his_ dick, by the way? Maddeningly glorious. He wants to hump it harder, but he’s pinned down with a pilot on top of him, and he feels so safe, there. Poe pulls his neck out of the firing line, and Ben _whines_ in protest.

“Babe,” Poe says, meeting his eyes as their hands move faster, chasing the other’s speed. “I freaking love you. I mean it. Don’t you ever doubt it. I love you.”  


“I love you, too,” he says. And he means it. And… he knows. He knows Poe means it, too. He shines with the sincerity of his adoration in the Force, and it’s almost painful to look at. It makes his chest hurt in weird ways, and he smiles wider when his hand starts to meet resistance on the down-stroke. Poe might not be in rut, but he’s getting ready to knot, to tie.  


Ben wants him to. Even if it’s not inside him, he wants him to, so he mumbles at him to get up. To get onto all fours, above him. Poe looks confused, but complies. Ben fists him furiously hard with his hand, and then uses the other to stroke around the swelling flesh below. He curls his hand around the base of his shaft and starts to tighten it, and Poe is reduced to a low, wanting moan. Ben’s doing that. Ben’s making him feel that.

He presses harder, trying to simulate an omega’s hungry hole, and Poe starts to try to pull in and out of his grip, but he won’t let him. He won’t let him, and he keeps his hand blurring over his cock as he does so, knowing that any minute now his climax is going to hit. Ben wants to give him that release, and he kisses softly at his jawline.

“I love you,” he tells him, and then tenses his grip like an omega’s contractions, and that’s all it takes.  


All it takes, and there’s a sudden rush of blood and a pressure in his hands. Poe’s brow is sheened in sweat, his eyes closed and his lips parted over another sound of bliss as he knots between Ben’s fists. Knots, and then is coming. Hard, fast, hot and with a tang that Ben finds addictively powerful, already. He’s spurting all over Ben’s stomach and _his_ swollen cock, and he won’t stop stroking until Poe is begging for it, until he’s stopped squirting his load all over them, and the only thing keeping his knot inflated is the hand behind it.

Ben stops stroking him, but he doesn’t let go of his dick.

“Babe… babe… please…”  


“Claim me?” Ben whispers. “Please. Please, Poe.” He shouldn’t ask. Omegas should never ask. He does, anyway.  


It’s wrong of him to ask like this, when they’re not really tied properly, when Poe’s locked into his hand, and when he’s still aroused and unfinished under him. But he wants it, and he’s wanted it since he was ten, and he’s old enough, now, surely? Old enough, and Poe _said_ it didn’t matter if they never did things the right way…

A nod, and there’s teeth on his shoulder and a glorious, furious, mind-whiting pain and rightness. Ben calls out with all of his voice and grabs his own dick with a come-smeared hand. He strokes Poe’s ejaculate over himself, the sticky sensation and the knowledge that he’s _owned_ , that he’s **loved** , that he’s _safe_ is enough to have him bucking and yowling himself. He comes with Poe’s teeth on his skin, and his hand goes lax, and he falls back, panting. The climax leaves his body bright and humming, and the only - only - problem is that strange little itch behind his balls. That… emptiness, that… need to be filled.

But later. They can do that later. They have forever, now. They have each other. 

Poe collapses on him, and they bundle into a collection of tired, sated, happy limbs. Poe’s head in the crook of his neck, arms around him, as he flops onto him. Heavy, but a reassuring heaviness. A blanket made of his _mate_ , his **Alpha**.

Ben… Ben’s home. 


	9. Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The galaxy still needs saving, and a few people need convincing to join in.

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?  
Will he offer me his mouth?  
Yes.  
Will he offer me his teeth?  
 __

Yes.  
Will he offer me his jaws?  
 __

Yes.  
Will he offer me his hunger?  
 __

Yes.  
Again, will he offer me his hunger?  
 __

Yes!  
And will he starve without me?  
 __

Yes!  
 And does he love me?  
 __

Yes.  
 __

Yes.  
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?  
Yes.  
I bet you say that to all the boys!  


***

After a moment or two, Poe regains enough sense to drop gently down on top of his mate. He makes sure he spreads his weight evenly, but then he blankets Ben and folds his arms across his chest, dropping his chin onto his forearms and smiling happily up at him.

Maker, but that feels better. So, so much better. The aftershocks of his climax make his balls twitch a few more, valiant times, but mostly he’s entirely spent and sated, and grinning like a fool.

Grinning, because Ben is, too. Ben has one hand somewhere on Poe’s hip, and it’s sticky with both their come, now. Mingled together, like a promise, like them. The other one is under his head, propping it up, so he can smile back at him. They likely look utterly ridiculous, but Poe couldn’t give two shits. This is the happiest he can remember feeling in his life, and it isn’t because of the sex. It’s everything else. It’s the fact he brought Ben home, and everyone is okay, and they’re going to save the galaxy, and Ben loves him back, and they’re going to fix it, and he’s **his** , at long last. His. The claiming mark still bright, angry, vibrant pink on Ben’s too-pale skin. His.

It’s okay to be goofy, right now, because they both are. And, in a way, he’s glad they did this now. Glad they did this when the pressure of heat wasn’t on them. Not that they would decide any differently, but because it shows Ben that he’s more to Poe than just a greedy hole, and that this… whatever they do… all of it is fun, and loving, and perfect.

“What did I do to deserve a mate like you?” Poe whispers.  


“Something terrible,” his taller lover replies.  


Poe growls playfully, and arches up to bite at the other side of his neck. “Bad.”

“That was my point, by and large…”  


He can’t help but snicker lightly at that, and he kisses the end of his nose, instead. “Well. I’m happy with you, so I can’t have been _too_ bad. Except for the waiting bit. Could have done without that.”

Ben’s smile grows nostalgic, and Poe settles back down to watch his face. He feels so warm, content and happy. He knows it’s not _de rigeur_ to claim without a heat, but so what? He would have claimed Ben then and there when they were kids, sex or not. If he hadn’t been violently restrained, they’d have been mates without consummation for years. 

“So… what now?” his mate asks.  


“Well, in a bit, I guess we shower… and we see if there’s anything to eat… and then we see if there’s some more positions to cross off the chart…”  


“Poe!”  


“What? I’m a full-blooded Alpha! Almost any time you’re down to bump and grind, I probably am, too.”  


Ben grabs a cushion and smacks himself in the face with it, laughing silently into it. “You do realise I’ve got no experience whatsoever?” comes the muffled question.

“That’s where I get to _break you in_ ,” Poe enthuses, his voice dropping into a promissory growl. It makes Ben shiver in delight, and he enjoys seeing that. That… happiness. That freedom. He’s got him back. He really, truly has.  


“I hope I accept your instructions well, then.” An air of teasing haughtiness, looking down his long nose from under the raised cushion. “After all, I am a difficult beast to tame.”  


“I’ll manage it, somehow. Remember: I can fly _anything_. Even you.”  


***

The galaxy gives them until the evening meal to spring the next thing on them. They’re on their way to the shared dining area when Snap runs up. 

“Guys. You gotta come to the War Room. Word is they’re readying the superweapon.”  


“Starkiller?” Poe asks, his heart lurching. He heard the debriefings Ben participated in, after all.

“Yeah. And they’re aiming right at us.”  


***

The discussions go by fast. Ground assault. Shield generator. Oscillator. Sun. Light. Dark. Boom. Poe’s head is reeling from it all, but his most pressing concern, when they leave the meeting, is… is…

…he has to lead the bombing squadron. They’re precious thin of able bodies and craft as it is, and this? If they don’t take it down, and fast? There will be no more Resistance to fly home _to_. So no pressure, at all.

He has to lead the bombing run, and Ben has somehow volunteered to go with his father to take down the shields. Which means… which means they have to split up. Already. For a mission, sure, but…

…he just got Ben _back_. He can’t lose him **again**. And then there’s the matter of the ex-stormtrooper currently having a minor breakdown about being asked to help bring down a planet-killing planet, and a young girl who thought she was just getting to co-pilot the _Millennium Falcon_ being told she has the Force, and she’s needed in an epic battle of Good Vs Evil, and Poe hasn’t even _slept_ properly, since before Jakku, and he’s concerned he’s going slightly insane from sleep dep.

And there’s Ben, pulling Rey off to one side with his mother. He can’t hear the conversation, but he’s sure - _sure_ \- Ben’s trying to convince her to stick around. To help out. He’s clearly terrified out of his mind at the thought of going back, but even more terrified about losing this all over again…

Which is when Poe realises this is it. This is _it_. This is their Death Star. This is, at last, when they get to be the Big Damn Heroes their parents always were. This… this is when they get to finally be _themselves_ , and not just skulk around in the shadows and reflected light of their too-brave parents.

He has to talk to Finn. Finn, who they abducted without really telling him why. Who they then told he could be free, once he’d been given enough of an identity and credit chit to at least survive, or given the choice to join the fight. Finn, who Poe really hadn’t paid enough attention to, and who Ben - Ben as _Kylo_ \- had wanted to save.

This is all of their times.

“Buddy… come with me,” he says, and he pulls the younger man away from the crowd.

“I’m grateful, I am,” Finn says, his eyes wide with horror. “But I can’t go back… not… not and… if they don’t kill me, they’ll recondition me.”  


“Do you want to stop them taking more kids, Finn? Kids like you, and like Ben?”  


Finn spins, looking over at the tall man and two shorter women, off to one side. He’s clearly very attached to Rey, and the lingering way his eyes slide over Ben… he didn’t know, did he? Poe wonders how many people have the _slightest_ idea what his beloved went through. “He was fifteen, Finn. But they started before then.”

“I don’t even remember my family,” Finn says, and looks back. “I don’t know if they’re dead. If they think I’m dead.”  


“Maybe not… but you can have a family, here. But you gotta help us fight for it. We all gotta fight for it.”  


He watches as the man’s jaw steadies, and he nods. “Okay. Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll… whatever you need.”

Poe smiles, and claps his forearm. “You’re a good guy. Ben saw that, you know. That’s why he saved you.”

“Sure he just didn’t want a fake pilot?”  


“He could have anyone be a fake pilot, but if they’d want to run back to the Order… what would be the point?”  


“I never really thanked you guys. I mean. Not… properly.”  


“You can thank us by going with him, keeping him and Rey safe. It’s gonna be tough, planet-side. I won’t be there to help out.”  


“I’ll keep him safe for you. I’ll keep them both safe.”  


“Good man, Finn. You’re a _real_ good man.”  


***

They do it. Somehow. Maker bless them, but they do it. They blow the blasted thing up. They lose about half their fleet in the process, and Poe mourns every last, lost soul. He does. But he can’t help but be delighted by every one they saved, and that number is bigger.

They do it. Starkiller is gone. Starkiller is gone, and the First Order’s been dealt a crushing blow. A blow made easier, he knows, because of the assault team Han Solo lead.

The one with Chewbacca, Ben, Rey and Finn. The one that lowered the shielding, and blew up key components groundside. They went a collection of retired heroes, just-returned outcasts, one turncoat and an unknown, They come back lauded and loved.

And Poe sees Ben walk off the _Falcon_ , and he doesn’t even get off the gangway before Poe runs up and leaps at him. He trusts Ben will catch him, and he does. Maybe _he’s_ acting like the omega, but Ben is tall enough to deal with a bouncing Alpha, and then they’re twirling through the air and there’s hands and kisses and laughing and someone - Snap? Jess? - yelling at them to get a room.

So they do.

***

Poe is still high with power when they get there. He kicks the door open to their quarters, the rooms they’ve now been given, and he grabs Ben by the shirt. Grabs him, and pulls him down. Down and down and bites fiercely at his mouth. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to show how much he wants this. From the hands in his hair, and the low, hungry noises Ben makes… he does, too.

He walks him backwards into the wall, and fucks his mouth with everything he has. The fear of losing him, the relief of knowing he hasn’t. The closeness of death, the shortness of life… everything. Everything. He feels so **much** , right now. His mind sort of tunnels down, hones in, and the hands in his hair, tugging, just make him see red.

“Bed. Now.”  


It’s a command, and he’s sort of aware he’s done it, but Ben is nodding fiercely, and when he steps back enough, his lover is running through to the bedroom. They strip as they go, Poe’s hands almost shaking as he shoves things off.

Maybe he should go slower. But Ben seems to want this, because he’s at the foot of the bed, naked, and his brown eyes are filled with nothing but love, lust, trust and adoration. Poe drinks that in, feeling _powerful_ , and he tells him to get bent over the bed. It’s going to be difficult not to just fuck him, but he’s told himself he’ll wait until Ben’s first heat, so he feels the _best_ he can about it. Plenty of other things, though. Like standing up against his ass, kicking his legs wider, making him bend further. 

Ben presents like a good little bitch, hands on the bedding and back arched. He presents his hole for the fucking, and there’s even a glimmer of translucent slick there. Poe jabs his thumb into his hole, and keeps it there, just inside of him. Ben _whines_ , and Poe is going to go insane, but that’s all he’s getting.

“Shh, babe, shh,” he says, as he pulls his thumb out. “Such a good omega, aren’t you? But not today. Not today, love.”  


“Poe… please?”  


“When you’re so slick with wanting that I slide right in,” he promises. “Not today.”   


And instead he takes his shaft and holds it, slaps it up against Ben’s own, resting against his cock and balls. And then he grabs Ben’s thighs and pushes them clamped shut around his length, so every hungry rut rubs against Ben’s own shaft and sac. Alphas supposedly do this a lot, when they want to fuck but not _be_ fucked, and there’s no one else around. As his Ben has been acting Alpha for years, it’s somewhat fitting.

Ben whines, and he leans to kiss the back of his neck. “It’s okay, baby. It will feel good. It will.”

“…y-yes…”  


“When I do fuck you, it’s gonna be the best night of both our lives, I promise you. It will. But not tonight. Not tonight, baby.”

Ben drops his head, panting, accepting it. It’s enough, and Poe starts to slam as hard as he can between his legs. Two hands on his hips, and Ben’s knees are bent to give him this angle, with his legs closed. It’s hard on his lover, but he knows - somehow - that Ben wants that, too. That sting of discomfort, that edge of not-good. Poe needs a hint of it, as well, and he isn’t going to last long. He can feel his knot already threatening, and it’s getting harder to move in that tight space.

“Poe,” Ben whispers, loving and wrecked. “Maker… Maker _please_ let me come…”  


“Shhh,” he whispers, and nuzzles between his shoulderblades. “Hold your dick. Stroke yourself off. Wanna feel you come apart under me. Wanna feel your pleasure.”  


Ben nods more, his whole body shaking through it, and then he’s fisting himself and his fingers brush against Poe’s dick, and that’s it. His knot pushes through the space between Ben’s legs - a loud moan from two throats - and then he’s spurting like mad, and so is Ben. He’s not sure how they managed to time it so well, but maybe it’s just the feeling of being so close that does it. Poe rocks gently, and kisses the nape of Ben’s neck, and he doesn’t move until Ben clearly isn’t capable any more. A soft mew of discomfort, but it rapidly stops when he guides him up and onto the bed.

It turns out Ben is a cuddler, something fierce when he’s come. He turns - messy and happy - in his arms, and… well. Even as the come dries over their hands and clothes, he finds himself with a mouth full of Ben.

Much, much worse things to find, he thinks. Much.

“I love you so much.” Ben whispers, into his neck, and Poe cuddles him back.  


“Just as much as I love you.”  


Damn, he thinks, when they finally fuck, it’s gonna be something beyond incredible. 


	10. Know my name / The honest soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Starkiller is destroyed, it's time to get life back to normal. Oh, and one more mission...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the end, do not worry. It's setting up a timeskip, or we'll never get anywhere!

And I’ll find strength in pain  
And I will change my ways  
I’ll know my name as it’s called again (Mumford and Sons - The Cave)

***

They invite them around for dinner, the next night. His parents do. Like this is normal, like any of this is normal. Ben is nervous as all hell, and frets about their rooms for hours.

“Babe… we can always blow them off.”  


He rounds on Poe at that. “You don’t ‘blow off’ my parents, Poe!”

“Okay! So we’ll go. But… it’s a good thing, right?”  


“Last week I was evil, and now I have to do _family dinners_?”  


“You were not evil.”  


“I was.”  


“You were _trying to be_.”  


“I was very evil,” Ben insists, snappily. “I was the most evil. I made other people wish they could be as evil as me, and I _still don’t want to deal with my parents over soup_.”  


“What’s wrong with soup?”  


Poe doesn’t understand. Ben snorts, and goes to look at whatever clothes he has. They haven’t given him much of a wardrobe, no time, so it’s mostly things he came wearing, laundered and pulled to lesser layers.

He freezes when a hand comes up onto his shoulder, and he realises he maybe is being… just a tiny bit… still evil. Or an ass.

“Babe, it’s gonna be okay. You’ll have me, there. And I can say I have a headache if you need to go.”  


He reaches up and over, fingers sliding between Poe’s and he nods. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“A lot to process?”  


He nods.

“It’s okay. It will be okay. I promise.”  


“Just get me out of there if it looks like I might murder someone.”  


“Only if you promise me the same.”  


***

Ben keeps his hand all the way to the door. He doesn’t care if it looks silly, or childish. He’s going with it being romantic and supportive, and when the door opens to Threepio’s servo-wheeling greeting, a wave of memory hits Ben like a freighter landing without reverse thrusters to slow the descent. He’s barely greeted before his mother clears her throat, and the protocol droid makes his apologies and lets them in.

Her eyes flicker to their joined hands, and then up. Ben feels Poe tighten his grip, and he can tell the two Alphas are communicating wordlessly. He has a high-necked shirt on, so no one will see the patch of skin marking him as _owned_ , as spoken for, loved, protected. But Alphas in particular seem to have some second sense for it, and she beams widely.

“About time,” Leia Organa tells them.  


“If you hadn’t sent me away, maybe he’d already have claimed me,” Ben chides, without anger.  


“True. But I also knew you’d both be struggling with your need to… well. Let’s just say I was young, once, too. Not as young as _you_ ,” she says to her son. “But Poe’s age.”  


Females always mature faster, as a rule, but even so, twelve would be young for a female Alpha. Female omegas normally showed at eleven or twelve, with Alphas holding out til about fourteen or fifteen. Male Alphas were a few years behind _that_. Betas normally waited until the time had been and gone before realising, unless they went for type-testing to confirm.

“I’m happy for you both,” she says, and holds out her hands. Ben reluctantly lets go of Poe’s to take hers, and his mate does the same. “You are a beautiful couple. Poe, I couldn’t ask for a better son-in-law.”  


Ben thinks she could have had a better son, b– then he **remembers she’s Force-sensitive** and looks guiltily at her pained expression. “Sorry,” he whispers.

“I couldn’t have a better son, because _you_ are **my** son,” she gently corrects him.   


They don’t get any further because this is when his father and uncle Chewie arrive, predictably fashionably late to the party. He tilts his head at Leia, asking without words. Ben’s mother nods, and then there’s a hand slamming down on his shoulder, and the other on Poe’s. Leia lets go of their hands, and Han jostles them. 

“Good for you, son. And you, flyboy, do I have to give you the speech?”  


“Sir, no, Sir,” Poe snaps off, amusement warm in his tone.  


“Good. Because Chewie would pull your arms off, and he’d be the _nice_ one.”  


Ben grins. Chewie really would.

***

Standing on a building  
I am a lightning rod  
And all these clouds are so familiar  
Descending from the mountain tops  
The gods are threatening  
But I will return an honest soldier  (Guster - Lightning Rod)  


***

Poe never thought he would be here. Well. He sort of hoped, when they sent him to Jakku, but things had changed so drastically after that. Ben, then Finn, then Rey, then Han and Chewie, then the Starkiller.

After it all, he’d been so caught up in taking care of his healing mate that he’d _almost_ forgotten what he’d been sent for, in the first place.

General Organa - does he still call her that, now she’s his mother-in-law? - she didn’t forget. She got the map from BB-8, and shortly after, R2-D2 provided the rest. 

Which means Poe is now part of the delegation to retrieve Luke Skywalker. He’s aboard the _Millennium Falcon_. It’s full. Han and Chewie, of course. R2-D2. Himself, Ben, and BB-8. Rey and Finn. He almost expects Ge– uh– Leia to get onboard, too, but she doesn’t. Someone has to hold the fort.

Poe. Poe Dameron. He was just a Commander, really. Black Leader. The best and most daring pilot in the Resistance, but that was the limit of his ambition. Or… professionally so. He had no desire to become a strategic face behind a War Table, only. He knows some people excel at that, but he doesn’t want that. He needs - _always has needed_ \- the visceral, adrenaline thrill of flying.

And now he’s in the cockpit of the _Falcon,_ surveying the buttons, while Han and Chewie take some rack time. It’s testament to how much Han trusts them that he’s left them here. Rey is somewhere with Finn, but she’s on call if something happens to them in hyperspace that Poe can’t handle on his own. 

They’re getting Luke Skywalker. The Jedi Master. There’s two Force-sensitives onboard already, and one of them is his forever more. 

Poe leans over, putting his hand on Ben’s thigh. His lover’s even consented to take his old name back officially, if quietly. He slides his thumb gently over his kneecap, and a hand lies over his.

There’s still a ways to go, but they’re going to do it.

“I’m not going to be a Jedi,” Ben says, as the silence expands slowly. “If it means giving you up, I’m not going to be a Jedi.”  


“Is there something else you can be?”  


That gets him a flicker in his mate’s eyes. “Ask my mother.”

Well, Poe thinks, maybe ‘Jedi’ isn’t the only good thing a Force-sensitive can do. “Whatever you decide, I’ll be right here, by your side.”

“Then nothing is impossible,” Ben says, and the silence gets warmer.  


Poe… Poe’s happy. So is Ben. 


	11. I'm ready now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two months after they met up again, and Ben is starting to get restless.

I’ve starved my days I’ve drowned my nights  
I’ve run campaigns against the light  
I’ve been the liar, I let the fire die down  
I shrunk back from the fight  
But I’ve got this feeling, this suspicion, this conviction  
something’s shifting and I’m lifting up my feet to take the step 

                      **I’m ready now** (Jason Webley - Promise to the Moon)

*******

They say the omega’s the last to know they’re about to go into heat, and their Alpha is normally the first. Ben hasn’t had a ‘true’ heat in over fifteen years, so it’s a distant memory. He doesn’t even know when his cycle would be up, just that he’s been back for two months and nothing’s happened, and Poe’s been an absolute gentleman and the worst motherfucker to ever walk a planet because he _won’t fuck him_.

Which Ben wants him to. More, with every passing day. Poe tells him every time that he wants the first time he takes Ben’s real virginity to be special, but Ben wonders how someone can be a virgin if they’ve come screaming in another man’s hand or mouth? Or if they’ve choked on a knot in their mouth as their Alpha came down their throat? (That had been fun, but his jaw had ached the next day, and he wasn’t sure he could take that much of him in _every_ time.) 

He’s slicker every time, now. Nothing like he used to be, when he was a teen and had nothing to take the edge off his need but his own fingers and a shower, but more. Enough, he thinks, that Poe could fit. Bodies stretch. Omegas’, definitely, do. 

The dreams are the final tipping point. It was bad enough when his lust coloured most of his waking moments, but when he wakes up with a raging hardon and the phantom memory of a knot pulsing inside him, he screams in frustration and Poe _still won’t fuck him_. He wants to, too, because he’s rocking hard against Ben’s ass, but he’s refusing to do that final bit, and it’s murder. It is. 

“Soon,” Poe had whispered. “You’re so close, baby. Can’t you tell?”

[[MORE]]

Ben hadn’t known if he meant to climax, or that elusive, never-surfacing _heat_ that promised to be the resolution of everything. Possibly both, because teeth on his claiming mark had made him howl and come over the edge with just a hand wrapped around his waist and fisting him furiously. 

He spends the next day, after that, annoyed with everything. Not even real **anger** , just annoyance. The holo is dumb. The plot is contrived. The pillows aren’t comfortable enough, only Poe is. The caf sounds like a good idea but the milk isn’t right. He’s not quite sensible enough to realise he’s coming through the other side of the blockers, that his body is adjusting violently back to normal, and his pre-heat tension is magnified a hundredfold. He just thinks it’s normal crankiness, even when he starts to cry because Poe tells him he’s beautiful.

It’s not even bad crying. It’s just… too much. The look in his eyes, the tone of his voice, so many lonely dreams come true in a few minutes and he’s being _ridiculous_ and sniffly and Poe somehow still **loves him** even when he cries into his shoulder?

He’s such a fucking cliché. It’s exhausting.

That’s about when he realises what’s happening, when he’s got his face buried into the collar of Poe’s shirt to breathe in his reassuring scent, and his hands are tangled in the fabric, and he feels so much better in his arms. He realises he’s not just being _moody_ , that.. that…

Ben looks up, mingled horror, shock, awe and longing on his face. “Poe?”

And Poe has to go and fucking **glow**  about it, doesn’t he? A little, rumbling purr in his chest, a nod with their eyes meeting. “Yes, babe.”

Ben feels a lot better. It’s not hit fully, yet, but he knows it’s getting closer to happening. A thrill of excitement washes through, wiping away some of the nerves and sadness. He holds him tighter, and nods when Poe asks if he wants to go to the bed.

He’s not ready for _that_ , yet, but he’s actually looking forwards to this. He’s not afraid like he used to be, although he is apprehensive. He’s not sure how effective his cycle will be, but he hopes it will be intact. He was five years into them before he was put on blockers, so hopefully everything inside worked itself out, and now he can just… finally weather one out properly.

Poe obliges by bringing him lots of comforting things. He doesn’t comment at the natural nesting behaviour (which is just the hormone dump making him domestic and cuddly) that leads to all the cushions and pillows at the top of the bed. Or the blankets pulled over them both. Or the chips and dips he asks for, and how he wants to curl against Poe’s side and listen to him breathing.

It’s difficult, suddenly allowing what he’s hidden for so long. What he was afraid of, as a child. He never really came to terms with his status, not even when Luke tried to tell him he was still the same person. He spent all his years in the Order feigning he was an Alpha, and he never got to indulge himself.

Poe doesn’t seem to mind the snuggly arms, or the quiet insistence on kisses, or cheese-dust-smeared marks around his lips when Ben’s finished. Poe sort of - growls? Vibrates, maybe - with a little possessive note as he strokes Ben’s arm, and he feels safe. He knows Poe would fight anyone - even a Wookie - if he had to, to protect him. He knows Poe would bust anyone’s nose, much the same way he’d do the same… except right now. (If he had to, he’d do it, now. But he’d prefer to have it _done_ , for the time being.)

If it’s weird for an omega to be almost a foot taller than their Alpha, that all goes away when they’re horizontal. He’s sure as hell tall enough to wrap his arms and legs around him, and Ben doesn’t feel weird about poking out around the edges. He feels… like he _fills_ his body, for once. Like every heartbeat floods every last inch of him, and like he can tell the subtle shift in temperature over every last ounce of his skin. Poe kisses his forehead and goes to make them something to eat and Ben whines at the loss of him from the bed, grabbing for his wrist, ass, anything… and Poe just laughs and tells him he’ll be a few minutes, not leaving for good.

When he’s gone, Ben decides to move into the dip where he’d been, and feel the heat impression he’d left behind. He closes his eyes and stretches, feeling the sheets under his bare calves, and how oddly aware of the world he is. It’s like his natural Force-sensitivity is ramped up a hundredfold, and he can feel _every breath he takes_ , but it’s not bad, no. It’s like being sure - **convinced** \- you’re alive. It’s like licking over your lips and memorising the tiny cracks, feeling them like mountains and valleys under your tongue. It’s like listening to the way his body is shifting inside, is gearing up to make itself ready for their lovemaking. 

Lovemaking. Because it is, with Poe. It’s not just slamming bits together (except when they both need that). It’s about making each of them feel good, physically and emotionally. It’s about bonding deeper and… okay, so he’s being an over-dramatic omega, but damnit, his mate is perfect and if he feels like waxing poetic over blowjobs he can damn well wax poetic over blowjobs. Because Poe is really, really fucking good at them. 

He thinks about that, and then he realises it’s not going to stop. The sudden, rising pressure in between his legs. The way he can feel the slick starting, and he doubts it’s going to stop. A warm, gushing feeling. It’s probably less of a waterfall than he’s convinced he is, but it’s pronounced enough that he can tell it’s happening. He reaches a curious hand under the covers, slipping fingers in to snatch a little, and bringing it up to sniff his fingers, and play the viscous goop over his–

He looks up, and Poe’s watching him from the doorway. His eyes are hungry, his nostrils flaring. He’s obviously picked up on what’s happening, and come back to see. Ben blinks, wide-eyed, up at him. He can hear every breath he takes, and he wonders what it will take to snap Poe from his statuary pose, to make him come over here and finish what’s been brewing since the day they met, in one form or another.

Ben kicks the blankets down, and licks his lips. Poe still watches him, so Ben decides to go for broke.

He knows what he wants. Poe knows what he wants. Poe - hopefully - wants the same thing. So the taller man turns, rolls onto his belly, then pulls his knees beneath him and shoves his ass up in the air. He grabs the waistband of his comfortable pyjamas (black, naturally) and slides them down and over his ass. He bares it, and the cooler air of the room on his ass is a beautiful torment. He glances over his shoulder, and looks hopefully at his Alpha.

“You’re beautiful,” Poe whispers, looking like he might burst from pride.  


Ben feels the same. He feels so proud of himself, even if it’s silly. His body is ready for his mate, ready to be mounted, mated, and bred. Even the thought of the words makes him moan, and he sinks lower onto his forearms, his ass begging to be filled. Filled, and his whole insides coated with Poe’s seed.

Normally the concept of carrying would be enough to make him freak out, knowing he’s in no position to raise or rear or protect a child, but right now the sensible parts of him are gone, and all he knows is _heat_. 

“Please?” he asks, and he feels the bed dip as Poe sits beside him. 

Hands move to slide his loose shirt up and off, and then pull the pyjamas and boxers off, too. He’s bare, and wriggling, and he feels - he feels so **warm**. Like his skin is burning up, and he guesses that’s why they call it heat. His face is flush, his tongue fat and heavy in his mouth. There’s a warm, bright landing-strip between his thighs, and his full cock and balls sway happily below him, and Ben just wants attention, please. Wants it now. He watches as Poe strips, and he can see his pilot’s hands are shaking a little.  


Nerves? Or need? He doesn’t know. 

“You’re so _very_ beautiful,” Poe says, kissing his hip when he’s done undressing, sliding a hand over his spine.  


“I know, but I’d like you to fuck me, anyway,” Ben replies.  


He gets a laugh, and a bite to his upper thigh, and that’s so maddening. He growls, and then the bite goes to the back of his neck. Teeth that sink in there, where he’s vulnerable, and make him whimper louder, make him want to hump the bed, but he’d just be rutting into thin air, right now.

There’s a growl through Poe’s mouth, and that just cuts him to the bone. He knows Poe would never abuse his position of power, his strength, and that’s why it’s okay to be ridiculously aroused by the sound and feel of it. An answering rush of slick between his legs, and he claws at the sheets. He needs Poe _inside of him_ , and Poe _isn’t inside of him_  and thus this is **unacceptable**.

Completely, totally unacceptable. And there’s nothing he can do but beg. Much more and he will.

Fingers glide between his legs, sliding up one thigh and through the crack between his cheeks. Up and down, up and down, and Ben shoves back hard. He’s rewarded by a finger slipping all the way inside, and - okay. Wow. Okay. Normally when Poe’s given him a single finger in the past it’s taken a bit more effort. That’s as far as he’s let him go, and it’s always made his mouth dry in anticipation as to how a full cock in him would feel. _Poe’s_ full cock, which looks like it could bore a hole through durasteel. Which swells so wide that Ben’s mouth can’t handle it all, and which is still not inside of him.

Poe promised. Poe _promised_.

“You’re so wet for me, baby,” Poe purrs, his voice approving and low. “So ready for me to knot you, aren’t you? Want me to slide in and out, until we’re tied forever, together? But we already are…” and he noses at the untimely claiming bite.  


Ben worries that asking for it early means Poe is in less of a rush to fuck him. He wants the wait over, and now. Damn decorum. Isn’t heat supposed to be an instant mood maker? Isn’t it supposed to make Alphas go mad? He’s a virgin omega, never bred, never had more than a finger inside of him, and he’s dripping his juices down his leg in his need, and Poe is waxing lyrical and not waxing his insides?

He glares at him, betrayed, and reaches back to pull his hand away from his ass. “Why aren’t you? Aren’t I enough for you? You change your mind, after all?” He wants him _inside right now and he is losing the ability to even consider being polite about it._

“The minute I get inside of you, I’ll lose my mind,” Poe says, his voice firm, but even. “I’m trying to savour this.”  


“Could you savour what comes next instead, please? Haven’t I waited for long enough?”  


Stroking. Hands over his back, his legs, and Ben wants to cry with how wicked it is. 

“…please?” he adds.   


“Alright,” Poe agrees. “I’m coming, baby. It’s okay. I got you, I got you…”  


His Alpha moves between his legs, then, and Ben feels the familiar sensation of the blunt head of his cock between his legs again. It slides through the slick, bumps at his balls, and then he realises Poe is holding his cock in one hand. He is, because there’s only one on his hip, and there’s a sudden sure, spreading pressure at his entrance. This feels more like when Poe’s pushed a finger in, before: his body resisting slightly, the fit a little on the tight side. Even with the slick and how ready he is, his hole doesn’t just sigh open. It’s a delicious torment that makes the tingling, contracting waves of pleasure radiate down into his thighs, up his spine. 

Poe’s breathing is breaking, his normal composure gone as he slowly breaches him. Hands back on his waist, a soothing murmur, and then there’s a sudden _give_ as there’s also a **push** , and Poe’s in so far that Ben screams in delighted shock.

“Babe?”  


“Don’t fucking stop!”  


There’s a barked little laugh, and Poe nods. “Damn. Damn, Ben. You feel so fucking good. So wet, so ready.”

“That’s because I’ve been waiting twenty years for you to shove that thing in me, Poe Dameron. I thought we established that fact.”  


And does it ever feel good inside. It slides into place like it belongs there, like it’s the only thing that does, and the only place it should go. It fills him and spreads him and splits him, but it’s anything but pain. It’s like a permanent yawn and stretch, the sensation of relief and tension in one. Poe starts to move, and Ben cries out in gratitude; every stroke in and out seems to find something new and glorious inside of him, and there’s no way he’s ever, ever giving this up, or giving his pilot up. His pilot, who breeds him with ever-increasing speed, and ever-increasing pressure. Hands tight, and his thrusts slap balls at his thighs. 

The slick makes it so easy, but he still tenses, and wails as that sends another coiling snake up his spine, choking him with pleasure. He moves where Poe pushes him, and his own cock is ignored below him, leaking over the bedspread, mingling with the splashes of slick that dribble down as they move together. He feels Poe’s dick slide against things inside, and then it’s pressing against - ohhh - that’s the thing Poe told him about, the one he fingered from outside that made his - MAKER!

The room shakes, the shelves shrugging holos and mementos clean off as Poe hits his prostate with three short, sharp ruts. Ben rides backwards onto him, and then there’s a sudden pressure when Poe tries to slide in and out. A pressure that starts at his hole, making the thrusts harder, and then it’s like something - something - it _flips_ and he’s being speared open on his knot. It floods up tight, and the sensitive ring is being tugged and pulled and there’s a cockhead brushing his prostate when they move just _so_ and then…

A weird, warm, gushing pool inside of him. Poe. Poe, whispering his love-messages in his ear. Poe, telling him he loves him before biting down on the claiming mark all over. Poe, locked so deep inside his body, their union sealed in all the ways they can. Poe, who is the only one Ben would ever bend over for, would ever submit to. Poe, who Ben loves with all his heart, and has since he was five. 

Poe.

Even as he feels the flooding, feels himself swelling gently from the seed, he chokes when Poe reaches around and grabs at his cock and starts to stroke.

“Mine,” Poe whispers. “All mine. Always mine. Gonna protect you. Gonna keep you safe. Gonna make you laugh, and cry, and come. Gonna give you everything you need, love. Gonna give it all to you.”  


And Ben couldn’t possibly hold out under that onslaught of love. He calls out again as his climax hits, as the pleasure whites out his mind and makes him spill over Poe’s hand, over the bed, over everything he can reach.

The pleasure from both sides sort of mingles into one, soul-deep, bone-licking heat, and he moans as he’s gently laid down into the mess on the bed. He doesn’t mind, because Poe lies atop him, nuzzling at his neck, saying beautiful things. He doesn’t mind, because they’re locked and tied together, and Ben knows it’s a good thing he’s an omega, at last.

A good thing, because then he can be Poe’s, in every single way. 

He tries to say a thank you, an I love you, but he’s so nicely floaty and blissed that it just turns into soft, rumbling noises. Muted, contented sounds. Poe kisses his neck anyway, and they lie like that for hours. 

It’s only a pity, Ben thinks, that it comes once a month. Although any faster, and he’d never leave the bedroom again.

Still, it might be worth it.


	12. A promise to the moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the morning after the morning after...

I’m ready now  
to let myself change colours with the leaves  
let the wind come shake me down  
Deliver me closer to the ground  
  
I made a promise to the moon

***

The next two days go by in a blur. He hopes, in a way, that Ben won’t be so overwhelming for so long every month, or he’s going to run out of leave days before the end of the year to deal with him.

Not that ‘dealing with’ is an adequate explanation. Ben has his moments where he’s a little weepy, or close to tears. He has clingy times when he demands Poe doesn’t even get up for water, but the rest of it is glorious. A warm, cosy, sex-fuelled holiday just for them. He takes Ben in every single position they can think of, and he’s pretty sure he’s running on empty by the end. He breeds him as often as his anatomy allows, but there can’t be much seed left in him by day three. He drinks lots, making sure he doesn’t dehydrate… and forces Ben to do the same.

By the end of it, Poe is smiling non-stop, and his face sort of hurts from how happy he is. He is somewhere beyond cloud nine. He knew it was going to be good, of course he did, but he had no idea how gloriously Ben would come into himself. He’s _glowing_ , now. Glowing like a radiant star all of his own accord, and the shadows around his eyes seem to recede in their mutual love. It’s not just the fucking (which is damn good), but it’s how he no longer seems to hate his omega nature. He’s… they’re… happy. And it’s wonderful.

The first day they manage to leave their rooms, Ben holds his hand for the first fifteen minutes, and he knows anyone who sees them will know precisely why they’ve been missing. He gets a few claps on the back and shoulder from his squad, and he even watches a few of them greet Ben warmly.

Things aren’t perfect, not yet, not with everyone… but they’re getting there. People are starting to talk to Ben like he’s anyone else, and Ben no longer hides or flinches back so much. He’s even heard him laugh, a few times, at Snap or Jess’ jokes. 

He goes up for more caf and bumps into Finn.

“No need to ask how you’re doing,” Finn says, with a tilt of his head towards the omega currently kicking his long legs under the table.  


“…not unless you like TMI,” he replies, fondly.  


“I can deal without,” Finn agrees. “But I’m glad. For you both.”  


“Speaking of… how’s the world been going while I’ve been gone?”  


“…you were gone three days, Poe.”  


“A lot can happen in three days!”  


“…have you ever had a vacation before?”  


“…does… uh… the time I got concussed and had to be grounded for a week count? I didn’t like that.”  


Finn stares at him, bites his lip, and shakes his head. “I’m doing okay in my flying lessons. Rey’s doing better. Damn, but she’s a natural. If you guys had two-man ships, I’d be volunteering just to be her gunner.”

“You’re both doing great, I’m sure!” Poe enthuses.  


“And Master Skywalker is showing her more Force things. That’s going great. Uh… you know…”  


“…Rey wants Ben to come along.”  


Finn nods. It’s a point of contention amongst them all. Ben’s steadfastly refused to have anything other than polite contact with his uncle since they got him home. In a way, he can’t blame him. The training Luke tried to help him with had done nothing to protect him from Snoke, and he doesn’t even want to _think_ about what Snoke did to him. On the other hand, it might help him, now. Now that he’s feeling better. He might be able to fend for himself, more effectively.

“Give me a few days and I’ll discuss it again,” he promises.  


“Okay. I mean, you know we’re just thinking of him, right? Not… not trying to get him to fight.”  


“I know. It’s… I know.” He claps Finn on the arm. “Thanks, buddy.”  


“Any time.”  


***

When he gets back, Ben is dressed and his hair is clasped lightly at his nape. He’s standing in the kitchen, trying to cook. Trying. There’s bowls and batter and things all over, and Ben is currently having a minor disagreement with Poe’s astromech, who he seems to have recruited as a rolling recipe-carrier and kitchen-supervisor.

“No, I remembered to pre-heat the oven this time,” he tells BB-8. “What do you mean, it has to be hotter? Wh… oh for…”  


“Babe… you do realise we can just eat with everyone else?”  


“I… uh. Hey.” Ben turns, and his cheeks and nose are streaked in flour. “I was… I… guess I wanted to be a good omega for you?”  


“You don’t need to act ‘omega’ for me, Ben. But it’s nice you want to bake for me… was it supposed to be a cake?”  


“The fact you even have to ask–”  


Poe grins, and steals the bowl from his mate’s hands. He puts it to one side, arches up onto the balls of his feet, and rubs his nose to Ben’s. They both end up smeared with white powder, then, and he drops down with a chuckle. “How about we tidy this up, and next time I show you how it’s done? In case you still want to know. You don’t ever need to cook me anything but toast and I’d still be perfectly happy.”

“Okay,” Ben says, and then rolls his eyes at BB-8. “Gloat later, orange ball.”

BB-8 purrs warmly, then wheels off.

“Your droid is a menace.”  


“He loves you, too.”  


***

As promised, a few days later…

“Ben…”  


“…what?” His lover’s tone is immediately suspicious and defensive, and Poe wonders if he’s pre-empted this with his own tone of voice?  


“We… uh…”  


They are snuggled close on the couch, Ben’s long legs bent to tent over Poe’s. His mate tucks his hair behind his ear in a gesture he’s not seen in years, and it hurts all over.

“This is the ‘kids’ talk, isn’t it?” He won’t meet Poe’s eyes, suddenly. “Because… I’m… I’m not ready.”  


“What? No! It… it wasn’t about kids, but…” Damn. Poe can’t help a little sadness entering his tone. He’d love kids, of course he would. He’d love Ben to have his children, and to bring them up together, but he also knows it might be cruel to anyone they brought into this world. One parent a pilot, one a Force-sensitive with his own demons he’s still getting over, the threat of Snoke, and the galaxy in turmoil.  


Not the best time to bring a life into the world. But… still…

“It wasn’t?”  


Poe shakes his head. “And I understand if you’re not ready for children, yet, but… does that mean… never?”

Ben pulls his sleeves down, fiddling with them. “Maybe not _never_. Just not **now**. I… I… worry I’d… with Snoke, I… he got to me, and what… what if I made them _bad_?” A shy look up, from under his hair. “…don’t be annoyed with me?”

“Never,” Poe promises, a little relief at the idea that it’s not entirely off the cards. He leans in, kissing his temple. “But you wouldn’t make them bad. You’d fight for them, tooth and nail. I know you, Ben. I know you.”  


“Still… not now. Later, maybe. Not now.”  


Although they did just spend three days rutting like mad, Poe thinks, guiltily. There’s less invasive forms of birth control than the complete blockers Ben’s been taking, but they’d wanted to return his body to normal as soon as possible before interfering further. Still, the aftermath of the blockers might have made that first heat infertile, and not every mating leaves the omega in the family way, or they’d never be barren, would they?

“What was it, then?” his mate pushes.  


“Your uncle. I know you said you didn’t want to be a Jedi, and I get that, but he can help you master stuff… not just Jedi, maybe? And if - if - we have kids, and they have the Force… wouldn’t you want to be able to pass things on to them?”  


“Poe… he’ll ask me to cut out my emotions.”  


“Maybe. But what if you tell him you can’t? And that you want to find some other way, some way that isn’t Dark, but isn’t… Jedi?”  


Ben pulls a pillow to his chest, cuddling it protectively. He looks so small, sometimes, even as tall as he is. “What if it goes horribly wrong?”

“Then you know you tried, don’t you?” He slides a hand over his calf, reassuringly. “Luke will do what he can to help you. And if… if it comes to it, he’ll help you fight Snoke back off.”  


Ben doesn’t want to talk about that, his attention sliding elsewhere. It’s denial, and Poe knows it. His mate probably does, too, but since he admitted to Poe that he heard Snoke in his head for years, they’ve both been worried what happens if Snoke decides to do it  _again_. “Okay,” he whispers. 

“Whatever happens, Ben, I’m here. If it doesn’t work, we find something else, okay? You’re so brave for even trying.”  


“I wish I felt it,” Ben hushes, and turns. He puts his back against Poe’s side, and waits for the arm to cross his chest. “But that can be tomorrow. Tonight… I don’t want to be anything but yours.”  


“Deal.” He kisses his lover’s hair, and listens to his breathing steady slowly back out.   



	13. So show me how

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Jedi, the Force, and legacies.

Outside this window I see all the other boxes  
box-shaped jobs and box-shaped cars  
those little box-sized lives that I could live  
I know the shape of this room  
I know these walls, I know this tomb  
I know I’m stalling, but I’m going to turn the page

                                  So show me how

***

Ben watches as Rey and Luke spar, face bathed in light as blue and green blades spark and twirl. It sends a jolt of memory through him, bittersweet and old. Once, that had been him. He’d been younger than Rey, but he’d wielded that saber against his uncle. Against its previous owner. He’d been there, keeping a mindful eye over his footwork and grip. Block, parry, thrust.

He’d learned a lot from his uncle, he has to admit. He’d been trained in other forms later, but the basics had been from this man’s hand. This man, who had faced the Emperor and Darth Vader. His uncle.

They finish, and nod in acknowledgement, and Rey goes to grab her waterbottle and walks over to where he’s watching.

“Hey,” she says. “You come to show me how it’s done?”  


“I think you have the best teacher you could ever have, there.”  


“He said if I could ever get you to duel with me, it would help,” she insists. “So. If you ever want to…”

“I’ll be right there, knocking on your door,” he agrees.  


She beams, and then nods, and then she’s gone. Whether she was finished or not, he suspects she’s giving him some privacy with his old Master.

Which Ben probably needs. 

“Ben.”  


“Uncle,” he says, with a polite little bow of his head.  


“You’ve been sorely missed, here.”  


“I doubt that. The last time you tried to teach me, I was anything _but_ wanted, by the end.”  


“That was as much my fault as yours, Ben. I should have helped you defend yourself better.”  


“How? I don’t think you could have blocked him out from me, not really. And I…” He sighs, slow and resigned. “I think I wouldn’t have been able to hold out, forever. It was… he was insistent. And I don’t know why he hasn’t tried again, yet.”  


“I don’t know either, but we should capitalise on his mistake and find some way to help shield you. I know you… were let down by my methods, before…”  


Ben bites his lip. “You meant well.” It’s as polite as he can get, considering.

“But it didn’t work for you. I understand. Or… I’m trying to. You know I wasn’t given much in the way of teaching, compared to the Jedi of old. Perhaps they would have been better able to help you, but considering what happened to my father…”  


“Then - and forgive me my impertinence - how, exactly, do you expect to do any better?”  


“Because I’ve got the second chance they never did, to help someone,” Luke says, softly. “And because I don’t think love is a bad thing. I never have.”  


“But… you don’t… you don’t have a mate?”  


“No. But that doesn’t mean I think _you_ shouldn’t have one, or Rey for that matter.”  


Ben tries to process this, but it’s a bit much at once. It’s so contrary to - to… he wonders, then, how much his prejudice was Snoke’s influence, making him sabotage anything that could have helped keep him safe. It’s a painful thought, and he bites his lip in dismay, cursing his childish stupidity.

“I’m sorry,” he says, at length.  


“Me too. So. Can we try again? We can learn from one another, Ben.”  


“…I don’t know what I can teach _you_ , but I will certainly try to learn.”  


***

He comes out of the training session feeling strange. Not unpleasantly strange, but strange. It’s weird, getting your head around something so fundamentally different to what you’ve believed for most of your life. To have lived believing pink was pink, and then someone pointing out that pink is actually just pale red, and the equivalent for blue isn’t considered its own colour. 

Ben isn’t sure what that makes him, now. What colour crayon he is, in the box of them ranged from one hue to another. It’s just that reds were reds, and now reds include pinks, or blues include more words, or… something. 

It’s not as simple, clearcut, or polarised as he thought it was. He wonders how many other things Snoke has coloured wrongly in his head, forced into broken ways of thinking. The voice was there for so long, so very long, that he can’t actually pick apart his old thoughts and know for certain what was, and wasn’t… him.

Which is all kinds of terrifying. 

He goes back to find Poe is out, but the droid is there, so he’s not flying. He leaves a message with BB-8 that he’s just going for air, and then he walks out into the woods outside the base. It’s safe, and he just wants to get away from people. Sometimes it is harder to shield their thoughts and voices, and he likes the solitude. 

Out, out into the green. He finds a little clearing between the trees and sits. And then throws himself backwards, and spreads his arms and legs. Looks up, and watches the light filter through the waving, green leaves. It makes the diffuse rays look almost yellow, and he smiles. He can feel the Force in the trees, and it’s slower. Slow, and sure; the water pumping lazily and inexorably through the trunk, from roots to shoots. The wind waves the fronds, and it’s like one long, soft circle of a system. 

His hands slide out into the mulch below, and he scrunches his fingers through the musty matter. It smells rougher when he does it, and feels cold and warm at once. 

There’s no Snoke inside his head, not now. Not now, but he doesn’t know how long that will last. Or… is he? Is he there, now, slumbering? Is he watching and waiting? Finding out where to strike, and how? Is he using Ben as a sleeper agent? The thought makes his stomach knot in displeasure, and he pushes his fingers harder into the ground. No. He would know… wouldn’t he?

No one did, before. Or if they did, they didn’t know how much. His parents, his uncle, Poe… none of them could keep Snoke out. How is it going to be any different, now? Just because he’s told them, and because he’s mated? It’s not like being partnered makes you somehow immune to Force-related mind-control, or he’d have found it a lot harder over the years to influence people. 

It’s why he can’t have children. Not yet. He brings his hands up to his belly, and places them over the flat planes, feeling his breathing through his clothes. Any child he had, Snoke would want. He knows - Snoke told him - that he’d waited to slip into _Ben’s_ head, and so his offspring would be just as in danger. Ben couldn’t live with that. He couldn’t stand the thought of his own babies being hurt, or manipulated, or messed up. His hands clench into little claws, dragging down to his hips. He’d - he’d - it would _break_ him. And…

…then there’s the worry that the Darkness in him, the weakness, the willingness to _Fall…_ that he will pass it on, somehow. That it’s a genetic thing, inherited from his grandfather. Or… or maybe he won’t be a good enough parent.

Poe will be, he’s sure. Or Poe would be, so long as he didn’t go and get himself killed on some damnfool mission and leave Ben alone with their children. Ben has to admit to himself that he’s still not the most stable and even-keeled of people. He’s got a hair-trigger, _still_ , and he’s not sure it will ever go. Not really. 

What if he loses his temper around the children? Not _against_ them, but **near** them. What if he gives them a terrible example? What if he… 

So many things that could go wrong. He just isn’t ready to be the parent his child - or children - would need. It would be irresponsible of him to conceive right now. There has to be some kind of suppressant he can take that will just remove that part of his cycle, right? He doesn’t want to lose the heat, just the potential for childbearing. And also… not permanently.

Because… it would be nice, he decides, as he lets his mind wander. A galaxy safe from Snoke. No dark voice in the distance, slipping in and warping a young mind. Grubby little fingers and snubby little noses and seeing Poe and his love made into something half of each of them. The smell of babies and the soft curls of their hair, and the sound of their laughter. 

It makes something skip low and happy and wonderful, but… later. He can’t do it yet, it would be wrong. Later.

Then they can have children, and he will love them with all he is. 


	14. Weave my way into a tight cocoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben... well. Ben isn't due for a week. But he's not acting like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reference to possible termination of pregnancy, as a potential solution.

So show me how  
I can weave my way into a tight cocoon  
then let it push me inside out  
I made a vow I made a pledge I made a pact  
I made a promise to the moon

***

Ben’s heat isn’t due for a week, unless he’s one of those ridiculously lucky-unlucky omegas who clock around irregularly, or faster than they should. It happens, and considering he Presented at ten, he’s already somewhat of a medical curiosity.

He’s not due for a week. At least. And Poe’s noticed the little signs. At first he thought the sudden increase in cooking failures was just Ben trying to be a good mate, with the old, stereotypical type roles in mind. BB-8 admits, when pushed, that his lover’s been trying and failing more than is immediately obvious. Ben’s also got that temper, still, and he knows his culinary failures will be cutting him up inside.

Poe doesn’t really care if his mate can burn water, but he knows if he says it, that Ben will find this insulting, so he just has to leave him to it. 

The cooking would be okay, if something he hoped Ben would grow out of.. but add that to the sudden changes in their bedroom. Every day he comes back to some slight adjustment to it, as Ben found the last way _wrong_ , now. Poe offered to move the sun at one point, so the light would always fall just as he wanted it to, and got a death-glare in return.

Currently the bed looks as bad as it did before Ben went into heat. There’s an over-abundance of cushions and blankets, and there’s no way this is pre-heat syndrome. Right? 

He briefly wonders if he can pose the question of if this runs in the family to Leia - one Alpha to another - but then he’d find out more about his mother-in-law-stroke-boss’ sex life than he’s entirely comfortable knowing. It’s bad enough knowing they clearly had sex at least once to give birth to Ben, and that’s as far as he’s willing to go.

Ben can’t be pregnant. He’d been suppressed for fifteen years. He was shaking off all that junk from his system, but… well. They… did maybe mate a lot more than he thinks is probably the norm. He’d been almost dead with pleased exhaustion by the end of his cycle, and Poe can’t believe how dumb they were. 

They Presented at ten and twelve. They’re true mates, the kind of mates they write songs and holos about. Why wouldn’t they be so compatible together that Ben would conceive on the first (or second, or third, or whateverth) go? 

Poe was an idiot. Poe was a _Star Destroyer-level_ idiot. Why didn’t he use some kind of Alpha suppressant? Why hadn’t he invested in a bumper pack of condoms? No. He’d gone and pushed his dick inside his mate, over and over, and now they… now…

…does Ben even know? He watches him on the couch, curling under Poe’s flightsuit, which he retrieved from the back of the couch when Poe flung it there. He’s all but _purring_ there, his shoulders and hair vibrating with low pleasure. He’s… he’s **glowing**. He’s…

…oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

Ben is going to **kill him**. 

The worst part is Poe isn’t sure if Ben will want to keep the child. He knows Ben wants kids, probably, some day, eventually. He’d been happy with the ‘eventually’ they’d discussed before, but what will he do? Will he… will he carry the baby to term and then ask someone to adopt them? Who? Who would he trust with their child, to keep them safe from Snoke? Or… or would he… would he… abort?

Poe knows it’s not his body, so it’s not really his choice, but he also knows he… he knows it’s one thing to take a pill, or use barriers, and it’s another to deliberately end a life. Even if the child runs the risk of being hurt and warped like his Ben was, it’s… he just doesn’t think he can do it. And if Ben wants to, he’s not sure he’s brave enough to hold his hand through it. But…

…he’ll have to be. He will, because he doesn’t get to walk away from his responsibility just because it turns his stomach. 

 **FUCK**.

Fuck. Why did they have to be so stupid? Why didn’t Poe think? 

Of course, it could be a phantom pregnancy. Some omegas are prone to those, and end up convinced they’re carrying when they’re not, much to their later dismay. If Ben is acting like he’s pregnant, then either he is… or he wants to think he is. And both are heartbreaking in their own ways. He goes into the little kitchen area and makes two mugs of hot chocolate. When he comes back. Ben looks up at him with such frank and open adoration that it is almost scary. It’s weird to be the object of such love, such care and appreciation. He hands him a mug with a warning that it’s hot, and then wriggles to sit beside him. 

Does he say something? Does he wait for Ben to?

How is Ben going to take this, and should he have maybe given him something that won’t scald them if he suddenly gets upset and spills it? His tongue squirms over non-words, his mouth ready to function, but his brain not. 

“I know,” Ben whispers, against his side, and then blows cold over the surface of his drink. Little whirls over the surface, the bubbles going to the edges for protection.   


“You do?”  


“I know… I need to go see one of the medics.”  


Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He’s supposed to be the brave one, isn’t he? 

“It… might be sensible.”  


“I don’t know if I should be terrified, elated, or both,” Ben admits. His voice is weirdly less small than it has been recently, when he’s been stressed. Poe doesn’t know why. He wonders if he’s never let himself be openly worried as an adult, and if that’s why he sounds so young when he’s stressed.   


“We don’t know for certain, yet.”  


“I kinda do,” Ben says, “…but I should get it checked, just in case I’m going crazy.”  


It’s… they both think it’s happening, don’t they? It should be the joint happiest day in his life, up with claiming and tying his mate for the first time. But even that hadn’t worked out right. They’d waited twenty years to claim, and they hadn’t even mated then, either. Their whole courtship is one long string of not-rights, making up a bigger right. 

But Poe is terrified, because now it could be real. Now they might have to plan their lives around a _third_. And not get their lives ready, first. He wants children, always has. It’s just…

“I love you,” Poe says, and kisses his lover’s temple. “Whatever happens, we’ll make it work.”  


“I hope so,” Ben says, and drops his head. “I worry that’s why Snoke didn’t interfere, when he realised who I’d run away with. I worry he left me alone just long enough for me to feel secure and… and… then he could steal my…”  


Now Ben starts to cry, and Poe is crying, too. He forgets he’s holding a mug until he moves his hand and nearly slops it over both of them, and Ben laughs as he puts both mugs down. It’s a sad laughter, though, and they hold one another close.

“I’ll do everything, _everything_ for you, for - for…”  


Ben takes Poe’s hand and holds it gently to his stomach. It’s still flat as anything, the same temperature as ever. Poe wonders how long it will be before it would feel different, even though it sort of already does. Ben’s fingers slide between his, and his heart is breaking, but it’s a good break. Mostly.

“You will be the best father ever,” Ben insists. “You won’t… you won’t get upset if our child is Force-sensitive.”  


It isn’t a question, and Poe knows where that’s coming from. Han Solo loved Ben with all _he_ was, but he also didn’t really engage with everything _Ben_ was. He remembers Ben trying so hard not to feel upset or disappointed, trying not to think badly of his hero, his father, and he remembers how he himself had felt the urge to go toe to toe with the Rebellion General and demand he love his son more. He’d had to be held back from doing it, Ben begging him not to make it worse. Telling him that his dad still loved him, he did, and he didn’t want to be ungrateful, and…

“If our child has three heads and is seven foot tall I will love it,” he says, as fiercely as he can. “I will. And I might not understand what it’s going through, but I’ll try to. I’ll try to.”  


Both of them are a mess, now, and Ben wipes his sleeves over his eyes. Poe curls protectively around him, and kisses his cheeks. 

“I don’t want to fuck them up,” his mate says. “What if I’m too wrong? Too bad? Too evil?”  


“You fought that monster to come home to me, Ben Organa-Solo. Don’t you ever think you’re weak. You - you… you were a kid, and… and you still didn’t let him break you, not really.”  


“I did terrible things, Poe.”  


“I know. I _know_. But you stopped. And you came home. And… Ben, you are the _strongest_ person I know. Even stronger than your mother. You know how I know? Because you had the balls to face up to what you did, and - and - fight what made you into this, and… you are **glorious** , Ben. You are kind, loving, funny, and I would never, ever want another mate but you.”  


“I’m a mess,” Ben protests, even as he looks so… so… hopeful? Drawn? And terrified. All at once.  


“You’re a mess, but who isn’t? You’re still _fighting_. You are still fighting. I am so proud of you. It took more balls than most people in the galaxy have to come back here, to admit you did things wrong, to face up to everyone.” He slips a hand around the back of his neck. “You are so _brave_. And so loving. And you will do everything you can for any children we have, and I will be so **proud** to be yours.”  


Ben throws himself at Poe, then, and Poe cries into his hair, as Ben cries into his. They both need it, and eventually the wave of sadness goes, and they’re just holding one another close. Hands touching softly, lips stroking skin, whispered love yous. 

“I couldn’t do this without you,” Ben tells him.  


“You don’t need to,” Poe promises.  


“Please… I want to go to bed. Come with me?”  


Poe nods. He can’t physically carry his omega, but he can get up first and hold his hand out to help him up. Ben comes in close and wraps an arm around his waist as they go through to the bedroom.

Ben’s already made the rudiments of a nest, getting ready for his - for… for his probable pregnancy. Poe finds it weirdly endearing, and he makes Ben stand still as he undresses him. He kisses his jaw, then works to slowly unfasten his loose, slate-grey shirt. Ben has his hands on Poe’s waist, and he submits to being stripped by degrees. Shirt, pants, everything goes, for both of them. 

His mate’s body is beautiful anyway, but right now it seems to glow with a broken light, and Poe kisses from one shoulder, over his collar, to the other. He lets his hands follow the beauty marks that dot his skin like a map waiting to be charted, interpreted, understood. He follows the planes and curves, the places where bone or muscle contort the skin. His tongue licks over dusky, pinker nipples, and then he puts one hand in the small of Ben’s back and walks him backwards til his calves hit the bed. Ben tumbles, holding him lightly, not afraid to fall, and Poe loves him all over again.

He puts a hand under his jaw and kisses the arch of his throat, and up over the side of his face. Up to where the salt-reserves of his tears have leaked out onto his cheeks, and he laps them from his skin. “I love you,” he whispers, and the hands in his hair hurt, but not in his head, only in his heart.

“I love you, too,” Ben whispers, and then an  _oh_ , when Poe lifts his hands and puts them above his head. A gentle pressure, a request to keep them in place.  


Ben complies, his fingers lightly curling towards his palms, the insides of his arms and the broad expanse of his chest trembling slightly.

“Let me do this for you?” Poe asks. “Let me show you how loved you are.”

His mate shakes harder, tears threatening under eyes pressed tight shut. His long, dark lashes so beautiful with the emotion they hold behind them. A nod, no words, and his full lips sucked in before they plump back out again.

Ben is his. All his. Poe wants him to know that, and so his fingers and tongue trail over the faint spider-webs of old injury - hurt once-healed - that frame his beautiful body. These are just the outward signs, and he knows there’s just as many inside, too; on his heart, on his mind, on his soul. He can’t touch those physically, but he can try to kiss them better, too.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers, as he holds Ben’s hips, and kisses over the flat of his stomach. “All of you. Inside and out. You’re beautiful, like a storm. Dangerous, but full of life. Bringing water, shaking things up.”  


“Destroying things,” Ben says, looking down at him.  


“Only the things not strong enough to weather you out.”  


Ben laughs, then, and Poe smiles. He rubs his thumbs into his lover’s belly, wondering. If there’s a small spark of life in there… he will love it. He will love it with all that he is. The thought of his mate swelling gently, becoming full and round with their child… it makes a weirdly protective flare send him dizzy. He kisses Ben’s navel, licks around it, and then slips to his knees at the foot of the bed. 

“Poe?”  


“Let me,” he asks, again. He moves Ben’s legs to rest on his shoulders, kissing down towards his knees and back again. He lets his hair brush softly over Ben’s groin, the gently filling shaft slowly rising from the nest of dark curls.   


“Please… I want to touch you, too.”  


Poe could resist, make him lie back and _take_ , for once, but when he sees the look in Ben’s eyes - hungry, adoring, wanting… but not desperate… he nods. “Okay.”

The hands come down and into his hair, combing through his curls. Ben’s always been fascinated with them, curling strands around his fingers, chasing the flow and fall of them. Down to his ears, behind, over his neck… gentle, caring, giving touches. It makes Poe’s heart expand inside his ribs, and he lowers his head between his thighs again. The heels around him pull him in as he starts to kiss and lick lower, as he chases the underneath of his shaft, following the line of one prominent vein up to the tip. He runs over and over that sensitive spot, making Ben call out softly in bliss. Over and over, and then his lips curl around the very head and he suckles, cheeks hollowing.

“Oh… oh… Poe yes, please… please don’t stop, please…”  


He wants to make him feel the best he can, and Poe’s hands stroke over his inner thighs, outer, up to his waist and down again as he lightly bobs over just the tip of his dick. Up and down, up and down, no rush to it. Just chasing the shimmy of his lover’s hips, the broken pleas and happy promises, and he’s his. All his. Ben belongs to him, and Poe to Ben. He takes him as deep in as he can, the long shaft stretching his mouth and hitting the back of his throat, making his eyes water. Ben calls out louder, and he breathes roughly through his nose. Hands tighter in his hair, and then he lifts from his cock with a _pop_ and a smile.

“Don’t hold back for me, babe. We’re in this together. You and me, whatever comes,” Poe tells him.

And then he dips his head lower and finds the sweet, sweet, clear slick that’s pooling on the bedding beneath him. Ben’s leaking softly, and he laps at his pink and ready hole. The skin is so sensitive there, and he makes sure to lick all around, and at the stretch behind his balls. Ben’s babbling, a wreck, and his heels drum on Poe’s shoulders as he laves him adoringly. As he teases at his entrance, feeling the way it flinches and flexes and begs for more. He might not be in _heat_ , but Ben’s body wants him, and Poe wants to give him what he craves. He makes his tongue fat and stiff, then pushes it inside.

Poe’s name bounces off the ceiling, and Ben’s spine _arches_ , even as he lies, and he’s trying to ride his mate’s face. Poe grins and grabs his cock, holding it near the base to keep him from climaxing too soon. There’s more words, more promises, and Poe fucks him slowly with his mouth as his other hand curls around the flare of his dick and his thumb presses into the precum-leaking slit, teasing at his entrance, making Ben insensate with need.

This is almost better than the heat. That time, they’d both been so intent on the breeding, the locking together, that they’d forgotten everything else. This time, Poe can shower him with the adulation he deserves, and Ben doesn’t shy from it. He _blooms_ under it, his chest and cheeks pink, his body a wave of lust and love. Ben’s letting him do this, and Poe feels so proud all over that his mate is happy, is safe enough in his arms to do so. 

He lifts a slick-wet face and looks up at him. “I want to be inside you,” he whispers.

“Please,” Ben insists.  


Poe keeps one of Ben’s legs over his shoulders, placing the other lower. He puts his knees back on the bed, and with some shuffling they get into place. He teases a few times, rutting against his balls, then behind, then it’s too much to tease him any more. He sinks in with one slow, sure movement… and drops when Ben’s legs fall around him. They knot ankles behind his back, and Poe holds himself up on arms around Ben’s face. He fucks him slow… no. It isn’t a fucking. It’s a love-making. He makes love him as slowly as they both can stand, and he can’t look away from those hopelessly gorgeous eyes. He knows he must look like the most broken man in existence, right now, torn apart by the storm that is his Ben. The soft noises of their bodies moving together, the slick, the sheets and the groan of the bedsprings. The way their breathing goes more shattered by the moment, and the smell of lust and content.

“I love you,” Poe says, even as his knot starts to fill his lover up.  


Slower, or is it just that he can pay attention? The way their movements have to change when his cock moves to lock into place, the thrum of blood as it spreads to keep himself inside. As it moves to lock himself inside of Ben, and stimulate his entrance to higher bliss. He kisses the side of his mouth, fighting to keep the air going inside.

“I love you more,” Ben says, with a hint of wry amusement. He looks drunk, his body played out and shaking like a beat drumskin. Fingers on Poe’s shoulders, and he’s gasping at the sudden stretch between his thighs.  


“What do you need, babe?” Poe asks.  


“H-hand,” Ben replies. “Please.”  


Poe is only too happy to comply. He curls one hand around Ben’s full cock, and starts to stroke. He can’t pull out any more, but he can press against his hole and then arch up onto one knee to drive harder in, aiming for his prostate. 

Ben howls, his climax hitting without warning. His hands claw, his eyes black and sightless as he bounces on Poe’s cock, fighting for more and less stimulus, all at once. Poe strokes him through it, twisting and squeezing and trying to get every last drop of come out of him. Ben laughs, and he looks - he - if they _are_ going to have children… it will be okay. It will. It has to be.

Poe comes only moments later. Ben’s body is still tensing and pulsing around him, and he can’t help it. He spills with a cry, his cock spurting and filling his lover all over again. Warm, glorious, loving… and not rushed at all. It’s nice, but that’s the wrong word. No, how do you explain how good it feels?

He doesn’t know. He just knows it’s perfect, as is Ben.

They curl up, then, rolling to lie side-by-side with Poe’s knot still full and fat inside of him. The slow aftershocks of his climax spurting from time to time, and he holds Ben to his heart.

“We’ll get through this,” he promises.  


“I know,” Ben says.  



	15. I made a vow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the relocation, Ben goes to get a check up.

I made a **vow** I made this **pledge** I made this **pact**  
I made a promise to the moon

***

Once they settle into the new rooms, on the beta site, Ben spends at least half the morning fussing over it. He’s brought all their pillows, blankets and everything that wasn’t nailed down on D’Qar, but it still isn’t quite right, yet. He knows in time it will, but right now it just makes him feel edgy… which does also lend credence to the theory that he’s… he’s… 

Pregnant.

Something he’d had quiet fantasies about for years, and put it down to the hidden, underlying tide of almost-broken hormonal change inside of him. He’d fantasised plenty about the sex, yes, but he’d also thought about after. Thought about his body spreading as he nurtured a small life inside of him. Of the feeling of being full of love, and what their child would look like. Would it be tall, short, or somewhere between? Would it have dark curls, or waves? Would it be somewhere caught between their skin tones? What about the nose?

Ben knows he will love them, whatever they look like, but he’s still curious. 

If it’s not happening, and he just is heavily fantasising so much his body is doing a dry run, annoyed that he’s thirty and not a father yet, then he will be devastated about it. He will. But he will also be relieved. 

If, on the other hand, there’s something wriggling and growing in him? He’s going to throw himself at Luke’s feet, no matter what his misgivings. He’s going to throw his heart and soul into working out ways to keep his child safe, and he’ll do anything but leave Poe or stop feeling things in order to do it. His own dislike of - and difficulty with - their level of control will simply have to be put to one side for the good of their baby. Screwing up your own life is one thing, but it’s absolutely unacceptable to be petty or do anything but break yourself into two pieces for your own child. He’s going to keep them as safe as he can.

Even if it means leaving Poe with the baby and going back to Snoke himself and swearing his allegiance in exchange for his child’s safety. Which he hopes it won’t come to that, but he’ll do it. He will. 

Poe is off doing something about the landing zone, and Ben doesn’t want to talk to anyone until they’ve been for his checkup. He knows his mother will sense something is up, and he doesn’t want to discuss it until he knows for certain. Instead, he sits on the couch and lets the words of some holo wash over him.

There’s a cautious beeping from the ground, and he sees Poe’s astromech rocking back and forth by his feet. 

Ben smiles, lifts BB-8 with the Force, and then curls up around the droid in his lap. “We’ll be okay,” he tells it.

BB-8 replies that it hopes so. It wants Poe and Poe’s love happy. 

Ben drops his chin onto the droid’s top unit, and wonders if droids can appreciate hugs, or not. Maybe intellectually.

***

In the clinic, lying on the lightly reclined chair, Ben squeezes Poe’s hand. The chemical smells are unpleasant, even through the diffuse room perfumes and the lights are stringent on his eyes. Ben isn’t all that worried, though, where the setting would once have thrown him into a panic. 

With Poe holding him, he feels okay.

“Well, Misters Dameron, I have the news for you,” the woman says.  


Ben can’t tell from her schooled face, and it’s killing him. “So?”

“You’re definitely pregnant,” she says, with a little nod.   


“Oh, Maker,” Poe says, and squeezes his hand so tight it hurts.  


Ben is both delighted and terrified. He’s pregnant. He’s carrying Poe’s baby. He’s–

“That’s not all,” she adds, just as Poe is about to kiss him.   


Ben frowns, and looks up. “What? Is it… it’s not because of my age, is it? Or the suppressants?”

“No, it’s more good news,” she says, quickly. “We believe you’re carrying twins.”  


Twins. Poe really loses it, then, and before Ben can say anything else, his Alpha has both arms around him and is holding him oh so very tightly, choking on a noise of glee. Ben just stares in shock, holding back onto him, and - twins.

Two of them. They’re going to have two? Twice the risk of fucking up. Twice the joy. It’s so confusing, and he has his hands in Poe’s hair, a little, broken laugh breaking out. Twins. And it’s happening. They’re really going to have kids. Ben breathes in the smell of his Alpha, and he loves the feeling of protection Poe gives him, false as it may be in some cases.

When they’re over the worst of it, still holding hands, Ben looks up at the woman. “Is there - are there any complications? Or is there anything I need to do, or not do, to avoid any…? Is there anything I–”

She puts a hand up, stilling the torrent of words. “It is too early for many checks, but everything we can see looks good. I’ll give you the information to take home, as there’s a lot to digest. As it is, keep gentle exercise going, eat well, and try to live as healthily as possible. But I’m confident both of your children will be born healthy and sound.”

“Okay. Thank you, thank you,” Poe enthuses.  


“I’ll let you two have some time to think about this,” she says.   


The door closes behind her, and Ben looks up. “We have to keep them,” he says. “I can’t– I couldn’t. Get rid of our children. And if I _did,_  there’s every risk we could never have children again. You… you agree, right?”

“Babe… I support you, whatever you decide, but you have _no_ idea how much I’m glad you want to keep them.” Poe’s eyes are gleaming, and Ben pulls him in for a quick kiss.   


“I’m going to apologise in advance for everything I do or say while I’m hormonal,” he adds, when the kiss finishes. He rubs his nose to Poe’s, and smiles at the hand combing through his hair.   


“No need. And whatever I can do to help - anything - I will do it. Even… I don’t know if I can help with the Force stuff, but if you need somewhere to vent, or to test stuff, or if I can just rub your shoulders while you do things… I’m yours. I’m yours, all yours.”  


Ben hopes this means they have a chance.

***

They decide to only tell Ben’s parents, first. At least until it’s far enough along to be a sure thing, and not to be lost early on. Ben sits on the couch, with Poe pressed against him, and their hands are joined between them.

Leia sits opposite them, with Han further down that couch, and Chewie for once isn’t in the room.

“So,” his mother says, barely containing both concern and hope in her eyes.   


Ben can’t say it, so he looks to Poe for strength. Begs, with his eyes and a brush of worry against his mate’s mind.

“We’re having twins,” Poe announces.  


Ben squawks as suddenly his mother has hold of him, grabbing his torso and squeezing with that deceptive strength she has, even now. “Congratulations!” she says, holding on and on and on. “Oh, Ben, I’m so proud of you right now!”

The hug goes on, and he pats at her, awkwardly, a little laugh breaking out. “Thanks. I mean. It’s still early days, and we shouldn’t tell anyone in case we lose them, but we…”

“What do you need? Do you need time off, Poe? Do you need a bigger home? Do–?”  


“We don’t need anything, Ma’am,” Poe cuts her flow off. “Just… wanted you to be aware.”  


Ben realises his father hasn’t said anything, yet, and when Leia lets go and just settles on kissing his hair, he turns his head to see. 

Han Solo has tears in his eyes. He’s rarely moved to public emotion, not really. He might be an omega, but he’s reserved other than his sarcasm and temper. Right now, though, he looks like he might burst. Ben feels a wash of love pass through him, and he knows - he knows the tinge of regret in his eyes is for his own failures as a parent. Ben has always known Han felt inadequate as a father, and he suspects he will feel the same. When Leia lets go, he gets up and walks over to Han.

“Ben…”  


Ben decides it’s time to be the bigger man, and he sits beside Han and wraps his arms around him, pushing his head under his father’s chin, but offering comfort more than demanding it. Giving him back the role of father they’ve been skirting on the edges of for some time. 

Awkward hands clap him, first, then Han holds him just as tightly as Leia did. “My baby boy all grown up,” his father says.

“I’m going to ask you both to babysit, just so you know,” he tells them, and laughs when Han pushes him to arm’s length.  


“If you get anyone else to, I’ll shoot ‘em myself.”  


“I promise, I promise, it’s you we’ll ask,” Ben reassures him.  


Leia decides now is the time to make everyone a drink, and Ben looks over to make sure Poe doesn’t feel abandoned. He’s still beaming widely, and of course he should know his mate would never feel anything of the sort.

Ben puts a hand on his stomach, and smiles. They will work it out. He will make sure of it.


	16. Us wolves were right behind you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben isn't showing, but Poe still wants to greet their growing children.

Walk tall beneath these trees, boy  
You monolith, not scarred by fallout  
Us wolves were right behind you  
And Lucifer will never find you, oh no (Patrick Wolf - Wolf Song)  


***

Ben doesn’t show early, despite the twin heartbeats in his belly. His mate keeps looking in the mirror, pulling his shirt up, turning sideways on and arching. He’s convinced he’s looking fatter, but Poe honestly can’t tell any difference. Not in shape, anyway. He does notice it in mood.

His lover is strangely calmer, for the most part. He seems to enjoy the feeling, or the prospect, or the possibility. He’d said he wasn’t ready, but Poe thinks it’s more that the outside world wasn’t ready. His Ben has grown so much, so fast, that he’s sure he’s emotionally more than capable of bringing up their children. Maybe it’s the knowledge that he’s responsible for other lives making him strong enough to stand for himself, or maybe it’s just that he feels ready, anyway. Poe might have used his Alpha Voice on Kylo, but Kylo had still been suppressed and broken under Snoke’s hand and years of manipulation. Kylo had _made_ that decision to leave, to live for himself.

Poe is so impossibly proud of him. He watches as Ben finishes brushing his teeth for the night, and comes to their bed. He wriggles into his place, and before he can pull up the blankets, Poe holds his hand and stops him.

“What are you doing?” Ben asks, confused.  


“I want to say goodnight to our little ones,” Poe insists. “Please?”  


“You know they’re too small to hear you, right?”  


“Never too young for music.” Poe shuffles down, putting his head on Ben’s hip. He pushes the shirt up, and the pants down, and bares Ben’s still-flat stomach. Okay, maybe it looks like he ate a big meal. It’s hard to be sure. The pilot glides his hand over the slightest bump, and over his hip, and back. He turns his face and places tiny kisses there, making Ben jump and fight giggles at the tickle of it.  


“Stop it!” But he doesn’t sound like he means it.  


Poe noses at his stomach, and them speaks low and reassuringly to the tiny blips of life. “Hey there, it’s your Da, here. We can’t wait to meet you, you know. You’re going to be so loved. We’re going to take such good care of you.”

A hand comes down to play with his hair, and Poe grins at the soft touches. He knows Ben is enjoying this, even if he might protest a little.

“We’re gonna make such the coolest nursery for you. And you’re gonna have all the friends and aunts and uncles. You’re gonna have a lovely family. You’ll get to meet your Grandma, and two Grandpas. And so many aunts and uncles. Everyone will be so happy to see you.”  


“They don’t even know they exist, yet,” Ben objects.  


“They can get used to the sound of our voices, and how happy we are.” Then he looks up, curious. “Can you… feel them? In the Force?”  


Ben’s tongue comes out, that cute gesture he makes when he’s focussing hard. “I think so. They’re indistinct, but there. Like… a small, glowing… ball? Not a sense of… not a sense of mind, yet, but maybe sensation. I don’t think they’re identical.”

Poe kisses his stomach even more, and then moves to lie curled against his side. An arm flung over his hip, hand stroking his stomach, and he gazes in adoration at his beautiful, glorious, powerful Ben. “I really can’t wait to meet them.”

“I know. Me too.”  


***

He doesn’t get to duck out of his responsibilities for long. It’s barely been two days before the next mission calls for Poe, and Poe is in two minds about it. On the one hand, he really misses flying when he’s not doing it. He loves it with all he is, the freedom and the excitement, and the sense of doing _good_ , of doing the **right thing**. It’s why he joined the Republic, and why he defected (or… progressed) to the Resistance.

But now he has split loyalties. He has a mate, and two small children on the way. If he should go down in a blaze of glory or - worse - be captured… Ben would be left to face Snoke and raise their children alone. Even with his parents’ help, it would be tough on him. 

 _But also_ , if he doesn’t go, how many families is he dooming to single parenthood, just because of his own selfish desire to protect his mate? Poe tugs his flightsuit seams into place. Nothing worse than sitting in uncomfortable clothes for hours on end, with no room to itch or wriggle them right. You only did that _once_ if it wasn’t a case of fly-or-die. In those circumstances, you were grateful of the discomfort because it meant you’d survived.

He slips into his cockpit, hands reaching for familiar controls. “You okay, back there, buddy?”

BB-8 whirs that it is perfectly fine, thank you, and enquires about Poe.

“Can’t complain,” he tells the astro. “We ready for take off?”  


An affirmative bleep, followed by a trilling series of notes.

“Okay. Let’s clear it with ground control, and go.”  


Cockpit closed, pre-flight checks done, everything okay… he pushes the thrusters and rockets up and out of atmo.

***

The mission he’s on is a recon one. Snap is normally their best scout, but he’s already out in the field, and this one has the potential to give them troop details, supply runs, lots of intel. He’s flying under neutral colours, a disavowed agent again. These missions are supposed to mean _do or die_. Either you come back in your X-Wing, or you never come back at all.

Jakku had been one of those missions. Had Ben not broken him out of the _Finalizer_ , no one would have come for him. He’d have died aboard the ship, once they’d extracted all the information they could from him. Maybe he would have managed to provoke enough violence for the end to be bloody and fast, with the minimal amount of stolen intel, or held out long enough for Leia to send someone to find BB-8. Maybe not. Maybe he’d have spilt his guts out before they - literally - spilt his guts for him. He likes to think he’d have kept up under normal pressure for some time, but if Ben - if _Kylo_ \- had really wanted to break him…

It doesn’t bear thinking about. He doesn’t even want to entertain the possibility of how fucked up the galaxy could be, right now. If the First Order found Luke Skywalker…

Poe lands the X-Wing, and tells BB-8 to unmoor and follow him. He leaves his helmet behind in his seat, then slips to his feet. The planet is a little chilly, and he pulls his jacket tighter around himself in response. His contact is supposed to be in the little village, here. Hands slung into his pockets, he trails as nonchalantly as he can, biting the inside of his mouth in an attempt to hide his discontent. It wouldn’t do to look worried. Worried people attract suspicion. Happy people do not. He also has to make as much eye-contact as possible, so that people look away first. It helps to disorient and keep his cover, more so than skulking. People feel intimidated by close, lingering eye-contact with strangers, as a rule, and it gets him through most places safe and sound.

The cantina is busy, despite it being the middle of the day, in a backwater, in the back of beyond. Maybe that’s why it’s so busy. There’s nothing else for anyone to do for fun, and he walks up to the bar and orders the drinks he’s been told are the call for the call and response. He waits, nursing the shot, wondering if his contact is - if - if… h…kss..

***

Many, many miles away Ben (Organa-Solo Dameron) is reading up on when to start introducing second languages to your growing children. He’s been training all morning with Luke, but his worry about Poe was getting in the way of finding anything like serenity. Luke had told him he’d done enough, and sent him home to relax.

Ben had been a little upset at the perceived failure, but he knew patience was also a thing he needed to work on. Patience, grace, and the ability to take guidance and outside opinion into consideration. So he’d nodded, and come back home.

He feels an unwelcome sense of terror, deep in his core. A sense of _danger_ , a fear that isn’t his to begin with, but soon is.

 _Poe is in trouble_. He throws the holo to one side and runs - in his sock-clad feet - straight to where he knows his mother is.   


Poe is in trouble. He has to go help him.


	17. The moon, let it guide you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben organises the rescue party, whether they like it or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Discussion of Ben's childhood.

The moon, let it guide you  
When Selene comes, we’ll all know how to fight  
Dear Fenrir, my savior  
Come and eat the ones, we know who taste the best  


***

Ben’s socks barely keep out the cold as he runs across the base towards his parents’ place. He doesn’t even process the feeling of gravel and grass when he hares over it, doesn’t think that the stress he’s feeling could cause problems for the children. All he knows is _Poe is in danger_ and his hindbrain takes over, flooding his system with adrenaline and making his body fast.

He finds his mother already waiting for him when he gets there, the door open, her sense of her son’s distress having roused her from whatever she was doing. It’s probably lucky she’s home.

“Ben, what is it?”  


“Poe. Poe’s in danger. Mom, I need to go find him. Mom, please!”  


[[MORE]]

***

He’s shepherded into the living room, where Han and Chewie are. His mother makes a few comm calls to various advisers, asking them to come around. He can’t sit, can’t stand, fidgeting from place to place until Chewie roars at him, and stands behind him. 

Two huge, fluffy arms drape over his shoulders, and Ben rocks himself to try to calm down as the reassuring pressure from his Wookie uncle keeps him from pacing a hole in the floorboards. Chewie is strong enough, and wise enough, that when he grips at his wrists and tries to struggle free, he’s pulled tighter in until he relents. He just needs - something. Comfort. Safety. Poe. To get Poe home, safe and sound. 

“Son, we’re gonna get your pilot back,” Han tells him, his eyes soft with compassion.  


“Dad… I… I can’t. I can’t lose him.”  


Chewie’s arms tighten around him, from behind, a roar agreeing with Han. Ben holds onto his wrists, and shudders from head to toe.

Han grips his shoulder, and their eyes meet. “We’ll get him back, Ben. We will. I swear. I’ll rip the galaxy in half if I gotta.”

“What if– what if he’s–”  


“You… felt him, right? That’s how you know?”  


Ben nods, chewing so hard on his bottom lip that he’s going to be raw, later.

“You’d feel if he… went. I’m sure. So as long as you don’t feel that…”  


Ben worries it is what he felt. He’s never had such a connection with someone before. He’s been gradually more aware of Poe - his moods, his presence, his distance - but he’s never felt a call over the Force from such a distance before. “I’m scared.”

“So am I, kiddo. But me and Chewie will go–”  


“I need to come, too.”  


“Like hell you will! You got those babies to worry about.”  


“I’m _pregnant_ , I’m not _invalided_.”  


“Your father is right,” Leia says, coming back from the last call. “You have to think about more than just you, now. That’s… that’s what it means to be a parent.”  


Ben feels an angry swell of accusation rise up to his tongue, but he bites it back down. His parents did try. Like he is, right now. Or will be. He can’t accuse them of things, then do them himself. “I still have to go. Maybe not engage in fire-fights, but if I can sense Poe’s presence, I’ll offer more of a chance of finding and saving him.”

“And you won’t go running off the ship if someone’s in danger?”  


“…not… unless I have to.”  


“Ben…”  


“No, mother, I’m sorry,” he says, with a shake of his head. “No one other than Poe wants our children safer than I do, but I also know how to calculate risk. Risking my own neck is one thing, but risking others… I can, and will, be intelligent about it. If… if you think I’m my own man, you think I’m an adult, then you’ll let me make my own decisions.”  


It feels strange, standing up to his mother like this. She’d always been the all-sensible, all-powerful, all-knowing one. Not just because she was an Alpha, but because she was his _mother_. But now he can see she’s just as Human as he is, and just as driven by fear for him, as he is for Poe.

“I just got you back,” she says, and walks closer. “I can’t lose you, not again.”  


“If I lose Poe, I… mother. I… don’t know how I’ll hold together. I’m already terrified about Snoke hurting our children, and… and… I can’t. Could you sit by and let Dad die, when you were pregnant with me?”  


“Ben, I–”  


“It’s okay. I won’t go throwing myself in front of blaster-fire. I have the Force, and I’ll go with Dad and Chewie. Just… don’t try to keep me here. If something happens to him, and I’m not there, and I might have helped save him?”  


There’s a long silence as the three older people in the room have a conversation with their eyebrows. Ben leans his head against Chewie’s arm, and feels his stomach knot when soft fur meets his hair. 

“I’ll keep him safe,” Han says, eventually.  


“Han Solo, if you don’t bring our son back…”  


“I’ll bring him _and_ his man back, safe and sound.” Han grins, and Ben smiles at the posturing, suddenly. “When have I ever let you down?”  


“How long do you have,” his mother drawls back.  


***

When word spreads, more and more people show their distress at Poe’s vanishing. Ben knows it’s genuine, because Poe is such a nice person that he’s likely made every single person’s day brighter, at some point or another. 

Apparently the ‘disavowed’ part of his mission has been forgotten. And Ben is in two minds about how he feels on that subject. One the one hand, it’s great that they’re going to rescue Poe. On the other hand, if he weren’t the General’s son’s mate? Would how much he made people’s lives better even matter? Would he be left to whatever fate would wait for him, or would they care enough to go back for him?

In the end, it boils down to him, Han, Chewie, Luke, Rey and Finn aboard the _Falcon_. Which means the only three Force-sensitives the Resistance has are all in one place. Which is totally not worrying Ben, not one bit, nope. 

Even he doesn’t need the voice of Admiral Ackbar in his ear, warning about _traps_. Ben alternately wants company, and then wants none. He skulks around and hangs onto the edges of a room, enjoying the distance of other people’s conversations until it’s too much, and he has to pull away.

It’s been getting easier since he came home, but he’s still not used to big, intimate social situations. For years he’s been sequestered away, and although he’d craved closeness, once he got it, he finds it is sometimes overwhelming.

Currently, he’s sitting in the upper gunner pod, leaning back, aimlessly pointing the cannon at non-existent targets. He isn’t going to shoot - not like there’s any point in hyperspace - though he does wonder what would happen if he did. He imagines ships in the cross-hairs - like he did, so many years ago - a boy, re-enacting battles he’d heard first-hand. He feels the presence before he hears footsteps, turning to see his uncle and letting his hand fall from the trigger

“Can I join you?” Luke Skywalker asks.  


Ben slips off the headpiece, nodding. “Of course.”

“I thought you might want some company. One omega to another.”  


Ben laughs. “The ship’s full of us.”

“Yes, but one is your father. And although I love Han with all my heart, subtlety has never been his strong point.”  


“…agreed.” He grins, and spins his chair around.   


Luke leans against the bulkhead, and he’s aged. Like his mother, like his father… the years show on his face, and in his eyes. Ben wonders how many of their worry lines were carved by his own, distant hand. 

“If you want to talk things through with me, that you might not be ready to with your parents, I want you to know that anything you tell me, I will keep in the strictest of confidence.”  


“I… appreciate that.” His hands slide the thin metal and plasteel band through his fingers, chasing the curve, the fading heat from his skull. “I… am worried about what… what I would do, if I lost Poe.”  


“What do you think you might do?”  


Ben laughs. “You know what.”

“Tell me.”  


Damn Jedi and their damn questions. Ben forces his breathing not to skyrocket, the familiar anger in his hands. Breathe. Breathe. Unclench. “I’m worried I will go back. Go back to Snoke. To the First Order. To the Dark Side.”

“Why do you think that?”  


“Because Poe is the only thing keeping me here.” He blurts it out, and then snaps his mouth shut in disgust. He feels sick to his stomach, but… “I worry I’m not good at all. That I was just trying to be good to please him, not because… not because I believe in it, or _am_ it.”  


Maybe he’s only good so Poe will love him. That’s selfish, then. And maybe he’s only good because Poe used the Voice on him. Maybe without his influence…

“Were you happy, there?”  


“What?”  


“Under Snoke. Were you happy?”  


What a question to… Ben pauses. Thinks about it. No one ever asked him before, but then he’s pretty sure they know the answer. Although how can they, for certain, if they never… “N-no. I… no. I felt…” One hand goes to his stomach, and he feels guilt over the wash of unhappiness he might be letting the too-small lights feel. “I… felt… the call. To. To come home. I… felt… torn. And I… I did not like what he made me do. I… liked the power, but not… the price.”

“So why would you go back?”  


“Because I would be angry! Because I would have no Poe! Because - because -”  


“Do you think I don’t feel anger? Or your mother?”  


“You’re a Jedi, uncle.”  


“My question stands: do you think I feel no anger? Or hate? Or fear?”  


“I’m not supp–”  


A hand on his shoulder. “You’re not supposed to let them _win_. But no one is saying you shouldn’t feel them. The same as love: love is not bad. What you do because of it can be either good, or bad. It makes you feel so strongly that the stakes are higher, but it isn’t _bad_.”

“But I don’t know how to _control_ it. I’m so afraid, right now. So afraid, and–”  


“You went to your mother.”   


“…and?”  


“You went to your mother, and you asked for help, and you talked about it, rationally. She came to me for advice, you know. After that. She asked me if she should let you come along. I told her that it had to be your decision, at the end of the day. But I also told her that you coming to her, and talking, and being mature and sensible about it meant I would trust you to do the right thing.”  


Ben startles. “…you did?”

A nod.

“…thank you.”  


“Ben… I want to ask you something. I want you to be honest with me, please, and I promise the same in return.”  


The minor relief turns cold and ashen. “…okay.”

“What could we have done, or said, to help you more? What did we miss? Please… don’t hold back. I need to know, so I can help you - and anyone else. You won’t hurt my feelings.”  


“I… I don’t know that… that you could have.” Ben had been so caught up in the fact it was inevitable - so broken under Snoke’s way of thinking - that the idea of _choice_ had become something laughable. “I felt I didn’t… I couldn’t say no.”  


“Alright. How about… why did you go to him? What was it… he said? Or did?”  


“It…” Oh, damn. Ben spins away, looking out the viewport. He can’t watch Luke’s face when he tells him this, not and be honest. And he owes him that much, after all he did to his uncle, after destroying all he’d worked for. “To… begin with… I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t realise it was someone else in my head. It was words and thoughts, and I thought… it was me? It was hard to distinguish. I don’t even remember when it started, it… looking back, it feels like it was always there.”  


A hand on his shoulder. A silent reassurance, and he takes a slow breath before he continues.

“He pushed at things. Pushed at my anger, my fear, my insecurities. He told me I would never live up to what you all had done, or expected of me. He told me I would… I would be forced never to love. He told me… the darkness in me, the… anger, the… fear and rage… he said I was… broken. That I couldn’t be Light. He… he made me think I had no choice, and that if I went with him… it… it would stop hurting. The pain would go away. I would… embrace the Dark, become powerful, and never feel… _wrong_ inside, ever again.”  


“He manipulated you, since childhood,” Luke surmises. “And made you feel there was no choice for you.”  


“Y-yes. He… I thought I… I was sure I… was… bad. And. And when I was there, it still hurt. It didn’t hurt less. It hurt…” Eyes shut, forcing the tears away. “Hurt worse, because I was alone. Because I had no one, and I had pushed you all away. He… made me do things, and made me sure I could never come home. Who… who would forgive me, for my… for…”  


“You were a child, and we didn’t protect you. I’m sorry.”  


“It’s okay.”  


“It isn’t. It was our responsibility to help you, Ben. When… when you left… I was so afraid, and angry, and guilty myself, that I left for years. So. Don’t think that a Jedi can’t feel those things, because I did.”  


“But you didn’t hurt people.” He glances up. “You didn’t hurt people.”  


“I hurt your mother, and your father. I hurt the galaxy, by hiding. Part of me knew I had to wait until we could face Snoke, but a part of me… also wanted to stay hidden.”  


“I’m sorry.”  


“Please… don’t apologise. We all have done things we regret, but what we do next is what matters. So… I want you to tell me: what would you tell your children, to keep them safe from Snoke?”  


What would he? He grabs hold of his hair, and tugs. The headpiece snaps into his cheek, but he ignores it. “I… would tell them… they could come to me. And not worry I would hate them, or be disappointed with them. That… that they could love all they wanted. That they… could make mistakes, and I would forgive them. That they weren’t broken, or monsters, or… anything. That I loved them, and that I would do all I could to keep them safe. That I had been there, and I had seen it, and it never made me happy. That the only…” he’s talking through a stream of tears, now. “…the only… time I was happy… was when I was around the people I loved. And - and - and that I w-would always love them, always, always…”

“Then that’s what we should have told you,” Luke whispers. He turns the swivel chair around with one hand. “Let me tell you that, now. Let me tell you that we forgive you, we love you, and that you’re no monster. You’re human, Ben. And we love you.”  


He throws himself into his uncle’s arms, then, and lets the pain rise up in a torrent. Lets the fear crest, the fear of being without the person he loves most in the world. The fear that his children will never see his face, nor he theirs. The grief over years lost, and the child he’d been, the adult he might have been, instead of what he’d done.

He cries, and Luke holds him until it stops. His uncle pushes hands through his hair, and he rubs his face against scratchy, brown robes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.  


“We all are,” Luke replies. A kiss to his hair, and Ben stays pressed against his uncle’s hip until the calm comes back.  


It feels different, when it does. Still afraid, but lessened, somehow. Or… understood. He just wants his Poe back. He wants his family whole.

And he’s not going to let that bastard hurt him, or his children, ever again.


	18. The darkness is simply a womb for the lonely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe isn't sure where he is, or how long he's been here, but he needs a piss really badly, okay?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon-equivalent peril and injury details.

I know just where you’ve been, boy  
I’ve watched you by the stream  
And don’t be afraid of the dark  
‘Cos the darkness is simply a womb for the lonely   


***

Poe wakes up with a thunderous headache. That’s the first thing that he realises. There’s pain, somewhere at his temple. His eyes are gummed shut, and when he tries to roll over, or pull his hands to his face, is when he realises that he’s not lying down. His feet are brushing the floor, and his hands twitch above his head. They’re immobilised, and he prises his eyes open to look around.

It’s dark, so all he can really see is glints of light, or patches of less shadow. There’s a thin strip of glow off to one side, but he has to really crane his head to see it, and it hurts too much to do that. It looks like he’s in the room alone, which… could be a blessing, or a curse.

Okay. Stay calm, Dameron. Work out what’s going on. Take it rationally. Take stock of your condition, your position, and what you remember.

First thing, he tries to work out how injured he is. His head is pounding, and when he tries to forcibly blink the pain away he can feel the dried blood on the side of his face. He’s taken a hit, there, but as far as he can tell his mental faculties are okay. He has no idea how long he’s been out, which means he’s been under, deep. Normally he has at least a vague sense of when it is, it’s a piloting thing. 

His mouth feels okay. No loose or missing teeth. His lips are fine, but then he remembers he drank something before this all happened and wishes he hadn’t licked back over them. A pause, but nothing untoward happens. Down his torso his ribs ache dully, and there’s probably a few minor bumps from his fall. Not too many, because he’d been relaxed due to the drug, so he hadn’t tensed on his way down. His shins ache a little, but that seems to be it. Up into his arms, his wrists are rubbed raw from the wide cuffs taking his weight. His fingers can’t bend to touch them really, so there’s no getting out of them. He’s been hanging so long that his shoulders ache, and now he can put his toes on the ground it gives him some momentary reprieve. He can’t put his whole foot on the floor, so he has to stretch his calves out and stand on the balls of his feet, which means he’s going to be playing _which part of me do I want to hurt most_ from one minute to the next. His mouth feels as dry as Jakku, and he needs to piss.

Like. Really badly. Like, so badly he’d be crossing his legs, if he wasn’t also trying to not break his wrists. That might be the most annoying thing of all.

Poe wonders how long he’s been out, if he feels like this. He also wonders _where_ he is. There’s a strange thrumming that sounds like a ship’s engine, and he suspects he’s in hyperspace. He has no idea who got the jump on him, or why. It could be the First Order, in which case he might well be - to put it politely - fucked.

If he’s super lucky, then it’s just slavers or bandits or bounty hunters or something, but why would he be lucky? Nah. It’ll be the Order. Maybe _through_ a bandit or a bounty hunter. Once upon a time, he’d just be a pilot dragged in for interrogation. (At the hands, no doubt, of Kylo Ren if he could resist the troopers’ methods.) Now? He’s Poe Dameron. But Poe Dameron is now the man who stole Snoke’s prize student and Knight away. He kept the map to Luke Skywalker, and rendered him unto the Resistance. He has to be pretty high up on their Most Wanted List.

The realisation hits with a weird mix of trepidation and pride. It’s surreal. It’s just entirely surreal. He was just a _pilot_ , one who happened to fall in love with the General’s son. And now he’s chained to the ceiling, bloodied, bruised, and very much afraid of the reception he’s going to receive when he’s delivered to wherever he’s going.

Weirdly, though, the fear for himself is sort of… distant? Or… finite. Bound, not boundless. Like, okay. He might die. It will probably hurt first, and he’ll have to hold back on saying things that harm the Resistance, but it’s pain. And there will likely be an end to it. Right? They don’t do anything but execute the enemy… so. 

What upsets him most is Ben. Ben, and their children. He’s going to miss out on all those years with his mate. He’s never going to see him swell up, and rub his sore belly. He’s never going to wash his ankles for him, or feed him ridiculous comfort foods. He’s never going to see his mate grow more beautiful still in the glow of pregnancy. He’s never going to kiss his hair, or hold his hands, or tell him how he loves him. He’s never going to sit with him, feeling Ben pressed against his side, as they watch their– their–

Grief hits him like a wave, then. He missed so much love he could have had, so many years when a monster in a distant throne room worked his fingers into his mate’s mind, his heart, his soul. A voice louder than his own Alpha bark, one he’d let ruin his beloved Ben. And now - now, when he got him back - he’d gone and… he was…

Poe doesn’t want to die. He screams, at the top of his lungs, and tries to swing his weight to find something with his feet. Screams, and demands someone come and pay attention to him. He’s afraid. He’s so very, very afraid.

***

Ben jumps, and bangs his head on the console.

“What’s wrong?” Rey asks.  


“Poe. He’s still alive. I felt him… he’s still alive.”  


“Do you know where he is?”  


Ben feels the echo, the shadow of something around his wrists. He rubs them, and tries to filter through the distant sensation. “He’s… a ship? On a ship.”

Luke walks into the room. “I’ve heard from Leia. Our asset who was due to meet Poe was found by the local law enforcement. He was dead.”

“He’d been tortured, hadn’t he?” Ben asks, his heart sinking.   


“That’s likely how they got the details of where to get Poe, yes,” Luke answers, sadly.   


“We need to find out who took him. And where. If he’s on a ship, we need to look into–”  


Luke holds his hand up. “We’ve got the details on everything that left the system. Ben… I’m going to need you to meditate with me. We’ve got the Republic and the Resistance doing everything they can to track him down, but you are connected to him. If you can get details, anything, then we might be able to intercept the ship.”

“…how… how can I…?”  


“I’ll show you.”  


***

Poe frowns. His head feels buzzy. Sort of weird. Is it dehydration? Hunger? Pain? Did the blow to his skull concuss him, after all? His hands itch to run over his face, to–

 _Poe_.

His name. It sounds… it sounds like Ben. He’s hallucinating, clearly. Delirious, from one cause or all of them. Maybe he’s sicker than he thought.

_Poe… I’m… I’m trying to find you._

Okay. Definitely crazy.

 _You’re not crazy. Your mate is Force-sensitive_.

Poe thinks that at least his hallucinated mate sounds as sarcastic as he would in real life. “Well. If you are, I appreciate the thought, but I don’t really know how you’re gonna–”

 _Just be quiet, please, and let me sense things_.

Okay. He isn’t sure how - hmm. Suddenly he’s hearing the hum of the engine better. Ships have specific sounds to them, mostly based off the size of the engine and the make and model. It sounds small. Small and slightly out of whack, if he’s honest. He’d get a mechanic on that, maybe. His head tilts and he looks around. Looks at the room and realises he can see a little more, now he’s properly acclimatised. The ceiling is only two feet taller than his arms at full stretch, and then he sees the shape of the door. Down, and to the pattern of the floor decking. Lots of little details, but he’s not sure how–

 _Call loudly for me, if you find anything else. If someone speaks to you, or you jump out of hyperspace_.

“…okay.” Maybe he really is there.   


_Yes I’m really here. We all are. We’re coming for you, Poe. Don’t give up. We’re coming for you. **I** am coming for you._

The fierceness in Ben’s tone is a comfort, and he smiles. Even if it is a hallucination, it makes him feel better. “If I don’t see you again–”

 _You will_.

“But if I don’t–”  


**_You. Will._ **

***

Ben grabs the tablet, scribbling thoughts down as fast as he can. He needs to capture every last scrap of information before it fades, though he’s sure it’s burned deep into his mind. Anything. Anything to narrow down the model of ship, to give them more of a chance to–

When he’s done, he sits back. His face is pale, and he feels… worn. Worried, but… maybe a little relieved.

“He’s conscious. He’s chained, in the dark, on a ship.”  


“You can tell all that?” Finn asks.  


“I suspect Ben here is more than just mated to Poe,” Luke says, very gently. “I suspect there’s also something… extra.”  


“What? Some kooky Force-crap?” Han asks.  


“A Force-bond, Han.”  


Ben stares. “It… that… is possible with a non-Force-sensitive?”

“Apparently so. You have always been closely connected to him, Ben. I suspect quite a lot of mates who consider themselves soul-mates are bound in the Force.” Luke smiles, and reaches out to grip his knee. “And it’s not just romance that binds us together.”  


“So can I help him? With it? Other than looking through his eyes?”  


“Perhaps later. He has no control over the Force, so…” Luke pauses. “Hmm.”  


“I know that face,” Han accuses. “You’re thinking something weird. Which is normally good-weird, but it’s still weird.”  


Luke ignores his brother-in-law. “If you can see and feel through him… you can’t make him use the Force, but you might be able to reach out across the distance. You could… potentially–”

“Free him?” Ben sits up. “If I can focus hard enough?”  


“Distance is normally difficult because you can’t see and feel something, but through Poe, it might be possible. Rey and I can help you.”  


Ben licks his lips. “Okay. Okay. Whatever we can do… just… show me.”

***

 _Hold on. That rescue is about to happen. Or some of it_.

“You found me?”  


_Not quite. Please don’t speak aloud. Look up at your wrists, and turn them as much as you can. I need you to feel everything you can about them._

Okay. He can do that. He twists his wrists, taking the weight on his feet to do it. He reaches around with his fingers, trying to graze the surface of the– what the? He yelps in surprise when the plasteel rings suddenly open, and he staggers onto his feet, knees flexing. **How in the hell?**

_Rey and Uncle Luke are helping me. It is not easy._

**I bet it isn’t. How the hell are you doing any of this?**

_Force bond. Explain later. Escape first._

Poe can’t help but agree with that idea. He walks quietly around the room, and finds his blaster is tossed into a footlocker with a few other things. He pockets them, and hefts his blaster. **This is insane, you know. We’ll be telling the kids about this one.**

_We will, when you get your ass back home, Dameron._

**Working on it, I promise.**

Poe walks up to the door, the one no shadow’s gone past, and he listens carefully. He can’t hear any movement outside, so he pushes the button and it swooshes open. More careful pacing outside, pain forgotten in the sudden adrenaline-rush of potential escape. He creeps down the corridor. **You getting all this?**

_Yes. Keep moving._

**So, this rescue is a joint effort?**

_Would you like me to chain you back up?_

**Can the others hear me?**

_I don’t know._

**Ask me later, babe.**

Which he probably shouldn’t have said, in case they _can_ hear. Oh well. He walks towards where he thinks the cockpit will be, realising this ship really is small. Likely a sole bounty hunter, trying their luck. Might not even know who they have. _Definitely_ don’t know what’s coming for them.

Outside the cockpit, he listens. Listens and…

_Wait._

Poe does, and then there’s that sharpness again, like Ben’s tuning things inside his head, adjusting the volume. He’s aware of the breathing of the person on the other side - _Trandoshan?_ \- and where they’re sitting. He slams a hand on the button for the door, then fires off three rounds right into the bounty hunter’s head. 

He’s still breathing fast when he realises they’re _dead_.

_Lock yourself in the cockpit, first, then jump out of hyperspace. In case you aren’t alone._

“Gotcha,” Poe says, kicking the bounty hunter’s corpse from the pilot’s chair. He slams on the buttons, needing next to no time to figure them out, then kills the hyperdrive.  


And breathes. “Here’s my co-ords. How fast can you get here?”

_Next to no time. We’ll be there. Just hold on._

Poe… Poe just exhales. The tension fading, and soon he’ll have adrenaline let-down. But for now… he’s safe. He’s safe. Ben saved him.

The fading wash, post-anxiety, makes him throw back his head and laugh in delight. He’s going _home, too_. He’s going home. It’s going to be just fine. The grin on his face threatens to split his head in half.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fairly sure I'm obeying the rules of Legends/EU canon at least, about the extent of Ben's abilities. Snoke can speak across huge distances, even without a bond or connection. There's also canon about moving items very far away.
> 
> If not, give me artistic licence, boys get pregnant in this universe ;)


	19. And I shall find you a home in our heartland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Falcon docks with the bounty hunter's ship, and our heroes bring Poe home.

The moon, let it guide you  
And I shall find you a home in our heartland  
A heart in our homeland  
Until the moon is down, until the moon is down   


***

The ships are barely docked and Ben is already fretting like mad. There’s been no signs of life other than Poe, but there’s still the possibility of hostile droids, or anti-boarding defences that they haven’t picked up on. 

Everyone who isn’t him is preparing to board, it seems. Okay, so Rey’s manning the _Falcon’s_ controls, in case of emergency or the need for a quick get-away, but everyone **else** is going aboard the ship. And although he promised to be sensible, Ben still feels the urge in his blood to go make sure Poe is safe. It’s there, but… so is the memory of how those two little blobs of life looked on their first scan. Hardly taking shape, but assuredly there. So he stands, and he scrunches his toes in his shoes, and he waits for his friends and family to bring his mate back home.

Staying back turns out to be a good plan, if heartbreaking. When the lock opens again, Finn’s helping support Chewie, whose fur is singed across the arm. Ben glances over, making sure the wound isn’t bad (it looks like a minor flesh injury, not deep, just painful, though the onboard med scanner will say for sure). Everyone else looks fine, and–

“POE!”  


He knows no one will care that he throws himself past them and at his pilot. Ben grabs him in the tightest hug he can - almost Wookie proportions in and of itself - and kisses the side of his face, over and over.

“Ben… hey… hey, sweetie, let me in, okay? Babe…”  


Poe is actually blushing when Ben eases up, allowing him the room to get back into the ship. He won’t let go of his mate’s hand, and he just feels so damn relieved. Ben drags him through to the small breakout room, pushes him into one of the seats and follows. 

“I’m gonna go punch us back home,” Han says. “After a few jumps to throw any scent. Don’t wanna have them following us back home.”  


“We should check there’s no tracker,” Finn says. “Just in case.”  


“You do that, hotshot,” Han agrees. “Luke, can you–”  


“I’ll take care of Poe and Chewie,” the Jedi replies. “Get us safe, Han.”  


Han grunts in low approval, then leaves. Finn asks Poe’s consent, then proceeds to check him and his clothing over. Luke bandages a roaring Chewie, and Ben just… rocks, gently. He has Poe back, so it will all be okay. 

They finish up, and Poe’s given the all clear. Luke’s cleaned up the small cut on his temple (which looked worse before the blood was cleaned) and dressed his wrists with bacta, and Ben grabs Poe by the hand and insists he follow. Ben knows this ship inside and out, and Poe probably knows it almost as well, so he doesn’t question when he takes them back to their old favourite hide-out.

Ben had his own room, back then. It’s still mostly bare; Han hasn’t finished his version of redecorating since he got the _Falcon_ back. They move to sit on the bunk, and Ben just needs his mate close. He suspects Poe needs the same, which means they can curl up together.

For long moments, it’s just skin-to-skin contact. Thighs pressed together, Ben’s longer ankle hooked under Poe’s. Hands joined, and heads buttressed like supports to a wall. Their breathing slowly levels, and Ben feels better when Poe relaxes. 

“Thank you,” Poe whispers, when they finally settle. “For coming to save me.”

“Of course I would,” Ben says, and twists his neck so he can place the softest of kisses to the side of his mouth. “I always will, Poe.”  


That seems to break something in his Alpha, and Ben lifts an arm around him. Pulls him in under his chin, and rocks him slowly. 

“I’m always going to come save you,” Ben tells him. “Always.”  


“Like I should have saved you.”  


It’s soft, and Ben feels it like a vibroblade to the gut. “You did.”

“Not soon enough.”  


“You _did_. I - you don’t know I would have listened, sooner.”  


“I could have tried.”  


“Poe… please, don’t. If we regret every lost day, we won’t enjoy the ones we _have_.”   


“Sorry. I guess I’m just tired. Is it okay if… if we just…?”  


Ben nods, and gently rolls Poe to lie on his side. His Alpha goes where he’s guided, and presses his back to the bulkhead. Ben grabs at the blanket, then lies down in the narrow strip that remains. Poe parts his legs and they tangle them together, like they always used to, and Ben gently cradles Poe’s head into his chest. The blanket drapes over them both, and Ben slides softly against his mind.

“I like when you do that,” Poe whispers.  


“Then I’ll keep doing it.” He’s all too happy to give Poe all the love and reassurance he needs.   


“It was weird, with you in my head. You said… we’re bonded? What does that mean?” he asks, after Ben nods.  


“I’m not wholly sure, but it means we’re connected. Which we already knew, but apparently I can help you without being there.”  


“And talk to me?”  


“…and talk to you, yes.”  


Ben feels the smile against his chest. 

“I like that.”  


“Me too. But you should sleep, Poe. It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe, with me.” He strokes softly at his hair, a soothing brush against his thoughts. “Sleep, love.”  


“Okay.” Poe’s voice is distant, and his thoughts scatter more gently as he slips out of his mind, and into the dreamworld.  


***

When they get back to base the onsite medics insist on checking over Poe and Chewie again. Ben, too, doesn’t get away completely unscathed because Poe insists they check the babies are okay, and Ben hasn’t fretted himself sick. He relents when Poe looks worried, and they all three get a clean bill of health.

When they finally get back to their apartment, Ben chews his lip and looks down at his mate. 

“I nearly lost you.”  


“But you didn’t.”  


“But I _nearly_ did.”  


“And you didn’t,” Poe insists. “Babe… I’m so sorry I got caught.”  


“Don’t be, it could easily be me, or anyone else.”  


“Yeah, but not everyone has _you_ to come home to.”  


Hands on his waist, and they curl in, almost dancing as they sway back and forth. 

“No one else gets to come back to me, but you,” Ben promises. He swirls Poe in a soft, slow circle. “No one but you. Now: do you want anything else?”   


“Just you.”  


***

In their room, they move to the bed. It starts with him giving soft kisses, trailing over uninjured skin and down the side of his face to the corner of his mouth. He peppers more there, then nudges Poe’s head back to kiss the soft space under his jaw and at his throat. Firm fingers curl around in his hair, and Poe’s throat vibrates under his touches. 

There’s no rush, no heated fever-need. Ben knows he could quite happily not proceed right now, and he wouldn’t feel disappointed. There’s no biological urgency, it’s more about offering and receiving comfort, about bonding closer. 

Poe submits to his affection, his fingers tangling in Ben’s tunic. Ben kisses lower, pushing buttons and fabric to one side. He remembers how he felt his first few times; half-terrified, half-impatient, and he acts as gently as Poe did for him. Even if the hurt is over, was less than it could have been, the prospect of _worse_ , and all that time alone has to have hurt his beloved.

“Babe…”  


“Let me,” he mutters, and peels the clothes slowly away. Hands stay in his hair, and Poe lets his head drop back as Ben licks a flat swipe over his shower-clean skin.  


Poe tastes mostly of soap and towel, but Ben doesn’t care. He laps over the jut of bone, nibbling lightly with his teeth. He play-bites as if marking him, and then puts a hand under his neck and lowers him gently backwards. Poe holds on, trusting him utterly, and his mate’s faith makes a weird little knot form in his gut. He licks his way over his torso, mapping every curve, every shadow of faint hurt. When he gets to the first nipple he mouths drily at it, enjoying the noises that gets him in return. Mouths, and then uses his incisors to scratch a gentle welcome before he licks it better. Across, worshipping his lean chest as he goes to pay similar dues to its brethren. 

“I love you,” Poe says, his lips crooked into a slanted smile.  


“I know. I love you, too,” he replies, chin dipping into his navel to sight along the barrel of his chest. “I want to show you how much.”  


“Do… do you…?”  


“Whatever it is, then yes,” Ben says, feeling the trepidation in his lover’s tone, wanting to reassure him. “Unless you wanted the other answer.”  


Poe laughs. “I was gonna ask if you’d… fuck me?”

Ben tilts his head. “I can’t… knot. And… you don’t slick.”

“I don’t care. Alphas can get fucked, too. And I know you get hard enough. Plus… without the slick, I’m pretty sure if you knotted, the size of you would break me in two.”  


“But you still want to?”  


A nod. “I want to. I… want to feel some of how you feel. I want… to know. What it’s like. I mean… without the heat, and the knot.”

“Okay.” Ben smiles, and climbs up to nose at him. “Okay, but you’re gonna have to help me out. I’ve never been on the giving end.”  


“Nor me on the receiving. But we can work it out.”  


Ben nods, and when Poe starts to work his own tunic off, he lets him. Clothes are wriggled out of, and kicked to one side, and then Ben is back to straddling his lap and he grabs Poe’s hands. Slams them down, knuckles-first, into the bed, gently. Poe smiles up at him, and the next kiss is a little more heated. Ben opens his mouth softly, and Poe fucks into it with his tongue. It plunders, scraping over his teeth and rubbing wetly against his own, and it makes a shudder of need wrack him from his shoulders down. The low, sure heat in his body edges higher, the distant blur of pleasure between his thighs spreading to his core. The wet feel of his own slick starts to build, and he realises he can use that as lubricant. Omegas do that, don’t they? If their Alpha wants them to. If they’re trying not to get pregnant, too. Omegas might be most fertile in heat, and just before, but they can still catch at other times of the month, too.

He knows that, whilst he might not knot, Poe is right about his size. He’s unusually large for an omega, and not just in the overall height department. His cock fills leisurely, and Ben watches as Poe’s eyes flicker down to eye his thickening erection in outright approval.

“You been wanting to feel me inside you for a while?”  


“Yeah,” Poe admits, with a grin. “Not that I don’t love fucking you, too.”  


“Gonna fuck me, after I fuck you? Get me to come inside you, then pull my hips down on you, to ride you?”  


“ _Maker_ , **yes**.”  


Ben likes that idea. He’s always wondered how it would feel to have Poe fuck him when he’s already come. He knows omegas are sometimes able to keep going much, much longer if things are handled right. He’s come twice, a few times, but that was always with Poe already tied inside him, gushing and flooding his hole. This will be different. 

“You sometimes wish you were an omega?” he asks, head to one side.  


“…the odd fantasy, maybe,” Poe admits, with a nod. “Don’t you sometimes wish you were an Alpha?”  


“I spent fifteen years pretending I _was_ one, Poe. I think I got the ‘would sometimes wish’ thing down to a fine art.” He wraps a hand around his cock, stroking slowly from balls to tip. He twists his palm over the head, then back down again. “I love being your omega… don’t get me wrong. But…”

“Sometimes it’s nice to make believe,” Poe says.  


And Ben - he just - he feels so _good_ when Poe says that. Like it isn’t wrong to occasionally fantasise about things being different. He’s happy being Poe’s omega ( **Poe’s** omega, not an omega in general), but this is a fun little thing to play act with. He’s pregnant, and he’s pooling slick, and  still he says: “I’m gonna knot you up so hard, Poe. Gonna fill you up. Breed you good and hard.” 

Poe actually laughs, something like a giggle, and his brown eyes dance with honest affection. “Gonna put babies in me?” he snickers.

“Yep.” Ben is so not good at filthy talk, but then, Poe hasn’t really been the stereotypical Alpha, so he’s got little real things to work with. “Gonna make you all fat and pretty, like me.”  


Poe puts a hand up to his face, palm up, over his forehead, feigning a swoon. “Oh, stars, protect me.”

Ben snorts, and grabs Poe’s other hand. He puts it on his cock, and they stroke him hard together. His dick is fully hard, now, and it’s a delicious torture to feel two hands on him. “Oh, shut up.”

“You started it!”  


Another giggle, shared back and forth, and Ben walks down lower, knees creaking the mattress as he goes. “Gonna put my slick in you. Show you how good it feels to be wet, there. Wet and open and wanting.”

“Do you like it?” Poe asks, suddenly a little serious.  


“Which part?”  


“The - the slick? Being ready?”  


Ben squints, then nods. He reaches behind himself, sliding fingers through the clear fluid. “Feels… like… being turned on in more places. I mean… my cock obviously acts kinda like yours, but then there’s this… warm, soft, gushing feeling. And like… it feels empty, and hungry, but not sad. Not sad hunger. And then when you slip inside me…” 

As he says that, he starts to trail his sticky fingers around Poe’s hole. Poe lifts his legs, wrapping them around Ben’s waist, and offers himself more fully. 

“How does it feel?” Poe’s voice is almost breaking, tiny, almost-not-there words.  


“Let me show you,” Ben offers, and then slips just the first bend of his finger into his lover. It’s tight, tighter than his own entrance is right now. His body is ready to be taken, and Poe’s really isn’t. His Alpha doesn’t seem to hate it, though. He doesn’t tense around him, or hiss. His eyes go darker, and he rocks against his hand.  


“F-feels… good.”  


“Feels better when it’s your dick,” Ben insists. “Can feel your heartbeat, between my legs, deep inside.”   


Poe trusts him, clearly, because he’s riding that finger deeper and moaning in low delight. Ben grabs more of his slick - finding a lot there ready - and goes back to that finger. And a second. Slowly, slowly, and all the way in. Poe grabs the pillow above his head - elbows skyward - almost bending in half. “B-ben! Oh! Oh… yes… that feels good… so good…”

Ben knows a little about omega stimulation, naturally. And while Poe doesn’t have the same deeper anatomy, or the same natural instinct to spread or lubricate, he still has places that Ben can stroke and touch. He puts two fingers under his balls, stroking flatly up and down as his other fingers slide in and out. Poe’s chest is flushing with heat, his lips parted and kiss-full. His Alpha still strokes his cock, and that’s just wonderful. All of this is. 

“Now imagine the wet feeling… that slick… imagine your body makes it, ready. It sees your beloved, your Alpha, and it knows to make itself ready for him to enter you. Blood rushes south, and you crave the fullness, the completion. You want him inside of you, want him to press against those dark places in you. Want his heat to pulse into you, and want to feel his knot…” and here Ben bends his fingers, pulling down and almost out. He doesn’t pull all the way out, keeping the pressure just inside the tight ring of his entrance. “…feel it spread you wider, wider, so wide you think you might explode… tie you together forever, and the knowledge that his seed is going to make you warmer still…”  


“Ben… Ben _please_ , please fuck me, **please**.”  


Ben is bigger than his fingers, and Poe doesn’t have the omega elasticity or practice, so he shakes his head and grabs more slick. Three fingers, then. Three that slide into him, spread, and fuck him with all the strength in his arm. Poe _wails_ like he is an omega, his mouth open and he’s bouncing furiously. Ben wonders if he looks like this, when he’s rabid and wanting, and he pulls his fingers out, ignoring the yelp of protest.

“Tell me how it feels to fuck me,” the omega insists, holding his cock away from Poe’s hand.   


“Ben?”  


“Tell me. I want to hear how you feel, before I do it.”  


Poe nods. His eyes drift shut, and his voice goes deeper. “Feels so good, babe. You’re so soft and wet and ready. Feels great to know how much you want me in you. To slide through all that slick and feel you clench around me. The way you tighten, but not because you want me out, because you want me _in_. The way I’m all the way inside of you, like you’re letting me into your goddamn heart. The way I just wanna slam you over and over, because you make this _sound_ like I’m perfect, and it hurts how much you love me, and I need to go faster, faster, hit that place inside you. Make you tense more, make you mad with it.”

Fuck. Fuck. Ben grabs the head of his cock and pushes it against Poe’s ready pucker. He rocks gently, and Poe’s eyes flutter under his lashes. 

“And I wanna go faster and faster,” Poe continues, his voice hitching higher, “…like no matter how fast I go, it isn’t enough. Wanna make you **howl** , and you make me so happy my dick swells. And then I can’t get out, and I don’t want to. I want to stay there, in you, with your body milking the come out of me. Want you to take it all, and want - want - want to make you as happy as you make me, Ben, I–”  


He can’t hold out any longer. One firm, sure, even push in and he’s buried to the balls. Poe’s eyes go wide, and Ben stops breathing. He’s all the way in. Inside him. In. Where no one else has been. Ben laughs in delight, though it sounds sort of choked. It’s warm, and tight, and soft, and snug. He feels Poe try to clench around him, and it makes him grunt in need.

“…you feel so good,” Ben whispers.  


“So do you, Ben.”  


“I want - I just - I just want to make you _happy_ ,” Ben insists. He does. He does, with all he is. He wants Poe to smile, always. A hand lifts up to his cheek, and he turns his face to kiss it.  


“You already do,” Poe tells him.  


“Is it too much?”  


“N-no. It’s a lot, but not… too much. Damn, Ben. I’m freaking lucky you’re the omega.”  


Ben laughs at that. It probably is a good thing. He’s always felt self-conscious about his size - his height, his hands, his nose, his ears… and his dick. Having Poe appreciate those things, anyway, is like salve to the soul. 

“…you could… you could start to move, now…” his Alpha suggests.  


“Oh. Yes.” Oops. He starts to ride slowly into him, feeling the way Poe’s body moves around him. Finding the natural rhythm, the pace, the angle. It feels good - so very good - but… “…dunno… if I… uh…”  


“You want to come on my dick?” Poe asks, looking up at him.  


“…is that okay?”  


“Always okay,” Poe replies. “I just… wanted to know what it felt like.”  


“If you want to do it again, we can. Maybe I–”  


A finger on his lips. “Only if you want to. And you don’t have to ever come in me, Ben. But if you do, I’d be happy for you to.”

He probably could manage it, he thinks. It’s just that he’d rather feel stretched and full when he comes. A nod, and he slips from between his thighs. “How do you want me?”

“Ride me?” Poe asks, hands reaching for his waist. “Ride me slowly. So slowly. Until we can’t take it any more, and I _have_ to throw you down and make you mine completely.”  


 **Fuck**. Ben has never moved so fast in his life. He grabs hold of Poe’s cock and presses the tip to his hole. Holds it still - eyes on him - before he sinks down and down and down and down and calls out in bliss. It’s so easy to take him inside, but it still drags over every nerve he owns. Makes electricity dance through him, and the soft, wet sounds of their union counterpoint his breathing.

“You are so beautiful,” Poe tells him, finding his hands, demanding they join them.   


Ben’s thighs shake, and he sits with Poe’s cock all the way inside of him. All the way. His balls brush against his buttcheeks, and when he wriggles and sways he can feel there’s barely any more room inside of him. He tenses, then tilts his hips and Poe’s dick grazes against his prostate. A yelp, and he does it again. 

“I love you,” Poe tells him.  


“I - I - l-l-love you t-t-too.” He does. He really does. He sits still, and uses every muscle he has to tighten down as he starts to ride him. Slow and violent to begin with. Faster, faster and sloppier… then slow. So maddeningly slow. He wants to make it good for both of them, and now he has an inkling of how it must feel for Poe, right this instant That urges him faster, and he scratches toenails on the bed as he moves.  


“Ben… **Ben** …”  


“ _Poe_.”  


Just their names, and so much else in the silence around them. He throws himself down, surging for his mouth, begging for a kiss. He bites love into Poe’s lips, and opens his own for the tongue that writes the other half of his song there, for him. 

Poe rolls them, then. Legs move and shuffle and Ben’s on his back. His knees are pushed up to his shoulders, hands behind them keeping them steady. The stretch is delicious, and it means the angle changes, too. Poe almost goes in diagonally, and it feels like he’s breaking him open on his prick. The familiar sensation of his knot making the movements hard, but Poe doesn’t surrender so easily. He rams in with all of his strength, and Ben howls in blissful appreciation. So deep, so deep, so good. That itch that he feels, that slightly-uncomfortable emptiness… all chased away by the passion of his Alpha.

“I’m yours,” Ben whispers.  


Poe’s teeth sink into the claiming mark, the promise he left forever, indelibly written into his skin. It stings, and it feels like home. Ben howls as his climax hits, right as Poe’s knot ties him fully. There’s a moment where he’s just spurting, before Poe grabs his cock and strokes it. The pleasure keeps cresting, and he feels the answering spurts deep inside him. Feels the way his insides are coated with Poe’s breeding claim, his mate already carrying and still taken like he’s a virgin bitch in heat. Ben’s balls tighten again, and Poe doesn’t let up. He just keeps fisting his sticky shaft, fingers pressing into pressure points, palm gliding over the head, nail teasing at his slit and Ben shrieks because the pleasure won’t stop. He’s not even really finished his first orgasm and the second hits. Or is it the same one, drawn out? He’s not sure, but the feeling hits like a punch to the gut, or the balls, and he fists hands into Poe’s hair, nonsense spilling past his lips.

Poe doesn’t give up. Even as his own cock stops spilling, but stays inside of Ben, the tie there to seal their union and ensure their offspring. He’d tell Poe’s cock he already did a good job of that, but that might make it deflate faster and the glorious pressure on his ring would go. His head is all kinds of blurry, the hand stroking too-sensitive skin even as he begs it to stop.

When Poe does stop, Ben is too blissed out to really understand what’s going on. All he knows is there’s kisses, and strokings, and murmurings, and arms around him. Arms around him, and a softening cock in his ass. It feels right there. It all feels right.

He pushes his face into the crook of Poe’s neck and tells him, but the things he says aren’t words, and they don’t need to be, either. Ben loves that he’s an omega, because it means he can be truly Poe’s. All those years of feeling unsure, afraid, annoyed… gone, because Poe loves him. And that fixes any number of painful places in his heart. 


	20. Your head, my mind, your mind, my head, as one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben has cravings, and Poe is a good Alpha. He won't let Ben go hungry.

The thought of you and me and me and you  
It’s clear, it’s blurry  
Your head, my mind, your mind, my head, as one  
It’s real, the foolish worry (K’s Choice -  A Sound That Only You Can Hear)   


***

The bump is no longer small enough to hide. Everyone on the base knows Ben is carrying Poe’s children. Plural. The minute they told the first people (Snap, then Rey and Finn) Poe started to crow about how they were making up for lost time and doubling their family in one fell swoop. He’s probably told everyone on the base (including the droids) and been congratulated by everyone, too. Ben’s becoming much more confident around the Resistance forces, and people seem to hardly remember the time he was Kylo Ren, or maybe they remember and they forgive him. The Starkiller, then rescuing Poe, and every other time he’s helped between has mended a lot of burnt bridges. 

Right now, it’s in the middle of the planet’s night cycle, and Ben had made that face he did when he wanted something, but wasn’t quite ready to ask.

Which meant Poe asked. And Ben - after a brief period of denying it - admitted what he really wanted was Poe’s spicy jambalaya. Which would be fine, except Ben ate all their fresh chillies the night before. So Poe is sneaking around in his sweatpants and one of Ben’s massive shirts because it was the first thing that came to hand, wondering if anyone will be on duty in the kitchens, or if he’ll have to do an ‘emergency requisition’. 

Poe realises he is so very whipped as he breaks into the storage cupboard. He jots down a brief IOU with his name and hefts a small jar of the hottest chillies he can find. Ben doesn’t even need to _ask_ and he’s offering to do any and everything for him. He just looks so damn… impossibly adorable when he’s craving things: those beautiful, brown eyes wide and wanting. Poe might be the Alpha, but his omega runs rings around him without lifting a finger.

Worse, Poe loves it. He loves doting on him so much, and if the extent of his malfeasance is pilfering a few capsicums and turning up tired to routine drills, well. He can live with that. 

When he gets back to their place, he’s surprised to see Ben out of bed. He’s wearing a blanket like a cloak, his dark hair mussed from his disturbed sleep. Poe is about to say something when he sees how pale his lover’s face is.

“Babe?”  


“Talk to me?” Ben begs, hands going white-knuckled on the blanket.  


“What’s wrong? Babe, do I need to get a medic?”  


“It’s _him_. Talk to me. Please. Distract me. Keep me here. **Please, Poe**. I don’t want to let him touch our children with his poison.”  


Poe puts the jar down, and then shuffles Ben over to the couch, sitting beside him. He puts a hand cautiously on his shoulder, checking if he wants the contact before pulling him in, closely.

“Okay, honey, what do you want me to talk about?”  


“Anything… anything.”  


“Alright. Snap was telling me about this new show on the ‘net. Apparently the reality and talent shows have been getting such big ratings that everyone wants a piece of it. You know, the trashy things you pretend not to watch?”  


Ben’s lips ghost into a faint smile. “It’s not trashy. It’s observing the sentient condition.”

“Trashy, and you know it. It’s why you pretended you weren’t watching things like that, when we started dating.”  


“…fine. Trashy. But I enjoy it ironically.”  


Poe kisses his temple. “Well, there’s a new one starting. They’re getting different worlds to compete in this musical battle thing. First there’s heats for each world - Core or Rim - and then they will all fight it out.”

“…fight it out? What, hit one another with their instruments?”  


“That might be fun, but no. People vote. Like, they cast electronic votes. So it’s a popularity contest. But get this - if it’s planet-based, you _know_ it’s gonna turn political.”  


“It might actually interest my mother, seeing how people vote. It would be very intriguing to see that against the backdrop of the Republic alliances and voting patterns.”  


Poe ruffles his mate’s hair. “Trust you to turn utter trash into some socio-political statement thing.”

“My mother’s influence.” Ben still looks pale, but the fear in his face is fading by the moment. “But we definitely have to watch it. I always love to see how the masses vote, and what is considered acceptable as art.”  


“Snap said we should put our own entry in.”  


“…how?”  


“List us as ‘Unidentified Resistance Planet’. Or something. Anyway, he said we could totally do something with an X-Wing overhead component, skywriting. Sadly, he thinks I should be one of the lead singers.”  


“Why sadly? I’ve heard you sing.” Pause. “And seen you dance. Wait… no. I agree. I don’t want you singing and dancing for other people. That should just be for _me_ , now.”

Poe puts his hand on Ben’s rising belly, stroking and feeling the heat radiate out. “What about these two? Can I sing for them?”

Ben’s nose and lips push against the side of his neck. “Yes. Yes, I will share with them. But Snap doesn’t get to parade you in front of all the galaxy, even if it _would_ bolster our recruitment numbers.”

“Is it any better?” Poe whispers. “Is he still there?”  


“He’s… he’s gone, I think. I keep feeling a shadow, and… I think he’s trying to contact the children. Or trying to make them aware of his existence, so he can warp them, when they’re born. I don’t know if he’s given up on me as a lost cause, or if he’ll try… to take all three of us at some point.”  


“You’re going to have to talk louder to them,” Poe says, voice sure. “And so will I. We’ll blanket them with love and safety, and they’ll never feel the need to run away.”   


Ben slides his loose shirt up and lets Poe see his stomach. There’s been kicking, and Poe loves to feel it. He bends down, and kisses the stretched skin. “Do you hear me, little ones? Your parents love you. We love you, and we’ll do everything we can to keep you happy, keep you safe.”

“Would you… sing to them?”  


“Of course!” Poe’s only too happy to. He loves to keep them company, to serenade them. He runs his lips over his lover, and then sings close by, his cheek against Ben’s tummy.   


“ _Oh, my little stars, the sky is dark for you,  
_ _“Oh, my little stars, your light is shining true.  
_ _“Oh, my little stars, I hold you in my palm,  
_ _“Oh, my little stars, I feel your silent calm.  
_ _“Oh, my little stars, I see you in the night,  
_ _“But oh, my little stars, I remember you in the light.”_

“They will be the luckiest pair, ever,” Ben tells him when he finishes, two fingers glancing against his temple.  


“They will, because we both love them.”  


Ben pulls him up for a quick kiss, and snuggles him tighter. “You know, I can feel them react to you. When you’re close, when you talk to them. They like it.”

“They do?”  


“It’s… they don’t have a full sense of the world, yet, but they definitely feel content and discontent. They recognise you, and they glow when you’re there.”  


“Can you tell them apart, yet?”  


“I… can. But I don’t know which is which. I mean, I know how to tell them apart, but I don’t know who is the boy, and who is the girl.”  


“We’ll see when they come out, then,” Poe says. It’s strange to him, knowing that his mate can sense so much before they’re even born. He envies it, but only slightly. Ben tells him about how he feels often enough, anyway. The pilot traces idle swirls over his skin, and then there’s a gentle pressure back, so he presses down to feel them reach for him. Or so he likes to imagine, anyway.  


Ben sighs in his own contentment. “I’ve been thinking of names, if… if you’d like to listen?”  


“Go on.” Poe’s been thinking, too, but he hasn’t really managed much in the way of decisions.  


“I was thinking… the girl? Shara. For your mother.”  


Poe swallows. “I… would like that. I think she would be beside herself if she knew.”

“She does know, in the Force,” Ben insists. “And I loved her, too. Not as much as you, but she was always so kind to me.”  


“She was kind to everyone.”  


“So now we know where you get it from.”  


Poe slaps his thigh. “And we know where you get _your_ snark from, don’t we?”

“I was being serious!”  


“So was I,” Poe says, utterly fondly. “So: consider it a yes from me. Did you have an idea for the boy?”  


“…Bail. For… my mother’s adoptive father.”  


Poe laughs, completely pleased. “That’s so lovely, Ben. I mean it. Shara and Bail, huh? I can get with those names. So. You still hungry?”

“I could go for food,” Ben agrees. “Or I could at the minute. We’ll see what I think when I smell it.”  


Poe leads him back to the kitchen area, and gets out the various ingredients, pots, pans, chopping boards, knives… he knows his way around this room like the back of his hand, now, and Ben assists by flowing around him with practised ease, getting things he was just about to get. His mate is not as good at cooking as he is, but he can certainly help with the fetching and moving under instruction. 

Poe loves to cook with, and for, his omega. There’s something just so nice about eating something you prepared with love, and you can get the flavour balance just right for your own tastes, instead of to appeal to the broadest baseline. The Resistance’s food isn’t awful, but it is mass-produced and designed to feed many, cheaply, fast, and also keep warm or edible for the longest period to allow people the flexibility of turning up in shifts to eat. It’s a drain in their credits to eat here, so they don’t do it for every meal, but they do indulge every now and again. Especially when his Ben decides right _now_ is the time for icecream, or de-caf, or cookies, or burgers. Sometimes several of the above, one after the other. 

“I’ve been thinking about practicalities,” Poe says, as he directs Ben to stirring the main pot. “I think we should get the side-by-side stroller. So they both get to see the world, and one another.”  


“Yes, I agree completely. Which is probably when I’m grateful you didn’t put three of them in me. I only have two hands.”  


Poe snickers. “There’s always next time.”

“No. You are not giving me five children.”  


“…four?”  


“Poe! We haven’t even had these two, yet!”  


He checks his hip against Ben’s. “Alright. We’ll see how you feel when they’re a bit older.”

Ben groans, but he’s smiling.

“Anyway, I also had a look into cradles. They should sleep in separate ones, so they don’t smother one another in the night. But we could modify them, so they were side-by-side again. Put some big holes in: big enough for their little arms to go through without trapping, but not so big they can crawl through or get their heads stuck.”  


“So they can hold hands?”  


“Yeah, if they want to. Twins are supposed to bond, closely.”  


“Ours closer than most, I suspect. They… I think they really do have the Force.”  


“Gonna make them a handful, but in a good way. You… got any pointers for me?”  


Ben snorts. “You want me to give _you_ parenting advice?”

“I figure you’re the best person in the galaxy to ask.” Poe keeps his voice gentle, the criticism of Ben’s parents subtle, and sad.   


“Well… you’re gonna have to prepare yourself for them moving things, once they work out how. Floating things above your head… grabbing toys they want… if they have any ability with mental control, they’re likely to climb into your head clumsily. Like… well. With me, it wasn’t deliberate. I’d notice things, and later I’d work out I’d been listening where I shouldn’t.”  


“…you can do that?”  


“If I was around someone who was really emotional, then yes. Positive, negative… it’s like… feeling their mood instead of just hearing it in their voice, or seeing it on their face. And then I’d be curious, because I was a kid.”  


“That… can’t have been easy.”  


“Not for me, not for my family. When we met, I mostly had that under control. Other than if people were _really_ emotive in my presence. Han didn’t like it, because he… because he couldn’t understand what was going on, and he felt powerless. He also wasn’t all that good at setting boundaries, or keeping me in them. I tested things, a lot. I think kids usually _do_ push against the omega, don’t they?”  


“Yeah, a bit. I mean, not in a bad way, but… kids will always try to see what they can get away with.”  


“So… don’t get angry with them for things they can’t help, but maybe gently try to guide them to doing the right thing. And even if you don’t know the answer, or what to say, listen to them. And… don’t just… if they come to you? Let them. Don’t… push them away, even a little.”  


Poe bites his lip. “I won’t.” 

“I know. Which is why me giving you advice feels weird. I don’t… I mean, I think you’re going to be a great father. And if I think you need to change anything, well. When it happens, I’ll talk it through with you.”  


“And me with you.”  


Ben slips an arm around his lover’s waist, and Poe kisses his cheek. “It’s almost ready.”

“Good. I’m _famished_. I’m sure these two are going to be ridiculously tall.”  


Poe shakes his head. “I’m going to be surrounded and outnumbered. Tall, Force-sensitive darlings.”

“Don’t feel intimidated: you’re just condensed wonderfulness, Poe.”  


He whacks the wooden spoon off his nose, then arches to lick it clean. “Charmer. Come on, let’s get something _trashy_ on while we eat this.”

“You’re joining me?”  


“After all that effort? Damn straight I am.” He dishes up two bowls, and then wanders back to the couch.   


Ben flicks through the late-night programming section (which is not the only thing showing, inter-planetary time-differences being what they are), finding a show about people getting their spaceships redecorated behind their backs. Poe loves to hate this one. He only has his X-Wing, but he can just imagine the horror of walking onto a live-in craft and finding someone had painted it _lime green_. He still has nightmares.

His omega wolfs his portion down, and Poe ends up feeding him half of his own, too. He doesn’t mind, though. It was more for company than consumption. Somehow they forget to go back to bed, and fall asleep cuddled up on the couch until the morning alarm sounds.


	21. It’s light but hard to carry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and Ben go for their final scan.

I feel you and you feel me as I feel you  
It’s good, it’s scary  
The speed, the heat, it’s deep, and steep  
It’s light but hard to carry  


***

This is the last big scan before Ben is due to give birth. They want to check him out extra because of the twin situation, but also because he’s technically an ‘older’ omega, now he’s past thirty. 

Poe is less offended by this than Ben thinks he should be. After all, no one really questions an Alpha’s virility when they hit thirty, and if they wanted to be utterly clinical, they should take into account the fact that Ben’s _been_ an omega for **twenty-odd years now**. So maybe his peak was sometime around his late teens, or early twenties. Whatever. He’s the one who got pregnant with twins in his first, real heat. So they can all go hang if they want to insult his uterus, because his uterus is sticking four middle fingers up at them.

Also, Ben is cranky. Ben is often cranky. Ben has swollen ankles, sore nipples (already!), a bump the size of a Y-Wing, and although he no longer feels like hurling in the morning, he’s taken to devouring whole sticks of bread with one hand, and a pile of chocolate in the other. But not both in his mouth at once. It’s a bite of one, and then a bite of the other. His mother reassures him that this is a perfectly normal (and calmingly non-disgusting) symptom of growing two fat parasites inside him.

Okay. No. He does love them. He does. But one of them likes to kick his bladder, and the other likes to press their foot behind his navel when he’s trying to sleep. He’ll be relieved when they’re out in the open, and therefore can be partially _Poe’s_ responsibility. He’s tired. And fat. And ugly.

No matter what Poe tells him.

But right now, they’re prepping the scanner, and he’s sitting propped up on pillows. At least no one is shoving things around in his butt today, because it’s all he can do to have sex at the minute. He’s _so_ not wanting anything else shoving there, thank you. Especially from people he doesn’t know. His knees are up to help make the position comfortable, and Poe has hold of his hand, and at least Poe normally acts sympathetic, so he doesn’t get his head chewed off (much). 

No, really, it’s just a bad day. He’s not always like this. Really.

“You ready to see them one last time before… before we really see them?” his mate asks.  


“I’m hoping I can work out from how they wiggle which one is which inside of me,” Ben says. “Foot-press one is going to be the irritatingly prissy Jedi. Bladder-kick one is going to need reining back from the Dark, I can tell.”  


Poe kisses his temple. “They’re both going to be lovely.”

“Sith. No child would kick you into nearly pissing the bed if they weren’t evil.”  


“Babe, they’re still a blip.”  


“They can sense when I get cranky! And they kick me anyway!”  


Poe pulls his head in for scritchings, and Ben eventually relents. 

“He or she probably just has a cramp in their leg, and needs to move. Or hasn’t worked out cause and effect, yet,” Poe reasons, infuriatingly.  


“Sometimes you are too understanding.”  


“Guilty as charged.”   


Ben sometimes wishes his Alpha could have some more assholeish traits, and not just ‘doesn’t always put the milk back standing upright in the fridge’. Or ‘takes too long in the shower when I want to pee and I don’t want to pee when he’s showering or make him stop and why don’t we have a separate bathroom for this’. 

The medic comes in, and says things, and Ben is mostly letting Poe pay attention because he wants to _see_ , damnit. He wants to see the wiggly shapes. He wants to know who he has to buy black babygrows for. Although technically black is unisex anyway, so. 

The screen turns on and there… there they are. They look like tiny people for real, now. The prerequisite number of limbs and heads that indicate they’re most likely Human. The one closer to his poor internal organs is obviously the fe– is _Shara_. He can name her, now. Shara. And there’s Bail, with his hand at his mouth. Ben squawks in delight, craning forwards, sad when it pulls his stomach away from the scanner. The device adjusts, and zooms back in again.

“There they are,” Ben says, awe resonant in his tone. All fingers and toes intact. He watches as Shara rolls back to Bail, and he feels the way she calls out to him in the Force. Bail turns, too, and he isn’t sure if they’re fighting one another, or if they’re trying to embrace, or what. It’s cute as all hell, and he’s - he’s just so happy.   


“And they look perfectly fine to me,” the medic says. “I’ll leave the scanner running just for a few last-minute checks, but there’s nothing of pressing concern.”  


The babies are due in next to no time, and he’s done it. He’s gotten through it. He hasn’t gone on any murderous killing sprees (although he did declare nemesis-hood on the supply chain that meant his favourite cheese wasn’t in stock, Poe had taken that with the lack of seriousness with which it had been meant). 

“They’re _beautiful_ ,” Poe whispers. “Oh, Maker, look at them! Can we get a holo of this?”  


“Poe… what are you going to do with the holo?”  


“…keep it forever and treasure it?”  


“Poe.”  


“…and show it to everyone so they can see our gorgeous children?”  


“They are just blue weird shapes right now! Not everyone will find that beautiful!”  


“Plenty of people will! Like your mother.”  


“My mother is one thing, your _whole squadron, plus every droid you know the serial of, and anyone who so much as says hello_ doesn’t need to see the inside of my birthing equipment.”  


“Ben… babe. It’s just your womb.”  


“Would you like me to take a holo of your large intestine and tell people how cute the cultures are inside it?”  


Poe kisses his nose. “That’s not the same thing. Your insides are much prettier than mine. And you have children in them, not… whatever you’re talking about with mine.”

“You’re still not showing it to everyone.”  


“…okay.”  


“And leaving a single person out does not mean that you’re obeying. That’s pedantry.”  


“I would never dream of it, babe.”  


Ben knows better.

***

Ben is so heavy. He’s never been a fat person, but he feels it, now. It’s difficult to find a comfortable position in bed, and he’s fractious. He wants the children out, soon. It’s almost time (maybe three more days, maybe) and he’s already started eating the foods that are supposed to hurry things along. He knows Poe is aware of what he’s doing, but he doesn’t object.

He doesn’t get to. He hasn’t waddled, puked, sweated and cried like Ben has. He’s enjoyed being pregnant, but it’s kind of coming to the point where it’s an unwelcome houseguest. He wants them _out_. Soon. 

Ben has also tried exercise. That lasted for five steps, and then he got angry, and he found the cheese-snack-things and went to the couch and watched trash and tried to convince the twins that they’d really like to _watch_ daytime dross with him, instead of just hear it.

No dice.

So now he’s lying on the bed. And wondering how the hell you look seductive when you appear to have swallowed your beloved’s BB-unit. Which is how he feels. Maybe he should paint it with orange details and beep.

Okay. Hysteria kicking in.

Ben’s lying on the bed, cuddling pillows and the comforter, supporting himself, and wondering if maybe he wants to sleep or not. No. He slept already. Didn’t he? “Poooooooooooooooooooe.”

He heard the door close. Poe has to hear him.

“POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOE.”  


Footsteps that hurry, and his beloved looks into the room. “Is it time?”

“No.”  


“Oh. I thought…”  


Ben looks up, tiredly. “I want you.”

“…is that how you’re seducing me, now? Yelling my name, then saying you want me?” Poe’s smiling, and he sits on the edge of the bed. He strokes a hand over his flank, and Ben purrs.  


“Working, isn’t it? And anyway: you put these things in me, it’s your fault. You and your damn knot.”  


“It makes two to make a baby, Baby.”  


“Still your fault.” He sighs, and looks up. “I’m tired, okay. I’m tired, and I’m emotional, and I want you. And I’m sorry I’m not some wonderful glowing, golden omega. I’m fat, and I’m bloated, and I’m sleep-deprived and I want you.”  


If Poe loves him like this, then it means Poe will always love him. Ben is pretty sure he’s atrocious right now, but Poe only responds with kindness to any distress. It soothes deep aches in him, makes him… makes him feel safe. Secure. He’s certain that only a few months ago, the thought of being curled around like this in bed, trying inexpertly to seduce Poe with the hopes of making him feel better, or encouraging his waters to break, would have horrified him. He’s utterly vulnerable, and he… feels okay. If still kinda weird and gross, too.

Poe kisses his ankle, and peppers his ammunition up his leg, like a rapidfire weapon. Ben moans, and there’s an answering flush in his body, despite everything. His body will always betray him, after all.

“So, not still worried that they will feel this?”  


“…they won’t remember, when they’re older,” Ben argues. He had been freaked out at the thought of Force-sensitive children picking up on their parents’ sexual pleasure, but Ben doesn’t rememb– nope. Stop right now before it kills the mood.  


“No, they won’t.” More kisses, and then Poe’s fingers are stroking the sensitive area behind his balls.   


Ben parts his thighs, and sighs in pleasure at the gentle touches. Poe slides his palm between his legs, rubbing over his balls, over his hole, caressing the whole area. It feels nice and warm, and then there’s a flicker of tongue between his legs. Oh. Oh yes. Ben always loves it when Poe eats him out, and he makes as much of an encouraging noise as he can. Once he got over the slight worry that it was gross (Poe telling him over and over that when he was drenched in slick he was clean already), he’d grown to enjoy the sensation of a tongue against his entrance.

“Thank you,” he says, as Poe continues to lick slowly at him. “Oh… oh, yes, Poe, ohhhh yes…”  


It’s only polite to show your appreciation when your mate spears his tongue into you, and then swirls around in a broad circle. When he teases and flickers at the slight pucker, or when he just licks flat swipes over everything he can reach. Ben puts a hand between his thighs, curling his fist around his hungry dick. He’s a wreck of need, rolling back and forth between mouth and hand. It’s wonderful, and Ben is just so damn _exhausted_. He briefly worries the tiredness is going to nix any chance of climax, but then there’s a finger inside him, groping, pushing until it presses against his prostate and he _knows_ he’s got it in him.

“Poe…”  


“What do you want, Baby? Wanna finish with me eating you?”  


“Want… want… fuck me? Please?” Ben hasn’t always wanted it, recently. It hasn’t always been so comfortable, but he wants it. He needs it.   


“Okay, sweetie. I’m coming. I’m coming.”  


“Hopefully not until you _get it in me_ ,” Ben scolds.   


Poe snickers, throwing off his clothing. He moves to spoon behind him, and Ben feels his shorter mate curling around him like he was meant to sit there. Poe is hard, of course, the taste of slick will have done that, if nothing else. 

“I love you, so much, Ben. I do.” Poe rocks against him, teasing before he starts to shallowly push inside.  


“I know,” Ben replies. “I… I _know_.” And he means something, with that. Means: _I worried you wouldn’t, but you do_. Means: _I thought I couldn’t be what you needed, but I am._ Means: _We are perfect together, and all my doubts are gone, and we’re going to be together until we die, and I couldn’t be happier at all_. He means all that, as Poe’s cock slides gently in and out of him.

There’s no need to rush, no need but the growing copper-tide in them. There’s kisses to his neck, to his shoulder, and Ben places his hands on Poe’s forearm as he strokes him slowly, so-slowly off. 

“I’m so glad I have you, no matter how long it took.”  


Bittersweet, but lovely. Ben turns his head back over his shoulder. “Kiss me, knot my mouth as you knot my ass. Fill every pore of me with you, and I will be yours forever. Forever and ever.”

You couldn’t really ever _not be_ with someone who loved you so madly, utterly, completely… who you loved just as much. Someone who’d thrown his whole biology over to prove his worth, and who had claimed your body, heart, soul. Someone wound so tightly in the Force with you that you could sense them from half a galaxy away. 

Poe’s tongue graces his mouth, right as his thrusts get erratic and fierce. Still caring, but hungry caring. Ben reaches out with the Force, covering his mate with a barely-tangible blanket of protection. He’s close. He’s so close. He sends the knowledge through their bond, and Poe strokes him harder. Harder. Faster.

It’s perfect, he’s perfect, and the sense of safety, love, home… the knot’s forming, pressing his hole wider and wider. The sense of happiness pushes out the aches and worries, and when Poe finally stills, Ben lets himself reach his climax. His _first_ climax, of course. 

Poe’s gotten adept at torturing more out of him. Ben can’t wait.


	22. A sound that only you can hear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Ben starts nesting with intent, Poe knows it's time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...if it wasn't clear, warning for non-graphic childbirth.

Listen when I’m silent there’s a  
Sound that only you can hear  
Listen when it’s quiet I know  
You can hear it, cover up your ears  
Cover up your ears   


***

Ben is acting even more restless than usual. He’s moved the pile of cushions and blankets again, wriggling in them, sighing loudly. He’s not in distress, but he’s definitely nesting for real. Poe finds him wearing one of his own shirts (it’s a big, sleeping one, but it’s still a bit tight on his lover’s taller frame), squirming about in his desire to get comfortable.

The babies are coming, aren’t they? It’s time. Poe slips out to make a quick call to the medics. Ben’s already decided he wants a home birth, so they’re on alert to bring in a team when he really starts. He tells them what the signs are, and they tell him to hang fire.

Poe goes back into their room and sits high on the bed. Ben curls around him, little, broken purrs and more sighs as his body readies itself for the main event. Poe holds his hand, and sings low songs to him. 

***

Of course they have to have a long-haul birth. Nothing’s ever simple, is it, Poe thinks. He wipes the cold flannel across his mate’s brow, and lets him squeeze his hand tightly. His body is wracking, getting the first contractions, making him ache and throb. 

Ben doesn’t even talk much, right now, and that’s the weird part. His stats seem fine, or the medics aren’t worried, anyway, but Ben is normally vocal as all hell. The pilot pushes his dark hair away from his face, and wonders what their children will look like all over again. At least, being non-identical, he’ll never be tricked into confusing them.

***

By the time he starts pushing, though, Ben is no longer quiet. Mostly he pleads and curses, and Poe tries to calm him down. Ben shuffles and pushes when they say push, but Poe doesn’t know how easy it will be to push one child out knowing there’s another. Maybe the knowledge that the pain will leave is enough.

“I hate you,” Ben whispers, in a momentary pause for reprieve.  


“I know, babe.”  


“You did - did this… this to me… and…”  


Poe rubs his shoulder, watching with some terrified wonder at how Ben’s arching, curving, trying to bring their children out and into the world. It’s a mess, but it’s a gorgeous one. 

“I take all of the blame,” Poe says, nodding. “It’s all my fault.”  


“You - you made me _fat_ , and you put me in - OH OH OH OH - **so much pain** …”  


The meds they gave him clearly aren’t enough. Another wave of contractions, and his mate is left almost sobbing. 

“I know. I know. But you’re doing so well. You’re doing so very, very well, Ben.”  


“Don’t fucking patronise me.”  


“I’m not!”  


“And if you think you are _ever_ putting it in me again…”  


“Let’s just focus on the delivery for now,” Poe counters, sure Ben won’t feel the same way when he’s recovered. Although Poe might volunteer for the snip if they want to continue to have unprotected sex. That would help, if they think two is enough? He knows Ben loves to feel him come inside of him, and Poe doesn’t especially want to have either of their heat-rut cycles broken up, if it can be avoided. Sure, they’ve only had one real heat, but it was so incredible that Poe would give a lot to experience it again.  


And not be murdered for impregnating Ben with triplets. Or worse.

“I mean it, Dameron. No dick.”  


“Alright. No dick.”   


Ben must be hurting to talk about sex in front of the midwife, but then… everyone knows categorically that they’ve mated, or else why would he be giving birth right now? Plus, she’s seeing between his legs, so he’s pretty much as undignified as you can be right now. 

His omega starts to cry, and Poe hushes him, and tells him to reach into his mind to balance himself out. 

“It will hurt you,” Ben says. “I don’t think I can help but broadcast my pain.”  


“Then I’ll take half of it, and you take half of my calm.”  


“Poe…”  


“Let me help you.”  


Ben doesn’t want to, but he relents, eventually. It’s difficult, but Poe is in this for half of everything, good and bad. 

***

Shara comes out first. Ben babbles her name as she starts to wiggle her little way into the world. Poe is torn between comforting Ben and going to see her, but the medics grab and wipe her down before he has a chance to make his decision.

The little girl cries. Ben’s heart swells, and Poe can feel it. He holds his arms out for his perfect little girl, and holds her where Ben can see. “Look at her,” he says.

Ben chokes out a non-answer, and then shudders all over again.

“Look at how beautiful she is,” Poe enthuses, as her tiny, snubby fingers wiggle, and she rolls into him for warmth and comfort. He’s in love. He’s in love with this little girl, and his heart feels like it’s exploding, and there’s more to come.  


“She l-l-likes your smell,” Ben says, then drops his head as Bail fights his way into the world to join his sister. “Bail… misses her. He… OH, POE, OH DAMN.”  


Bail comes out a little faster, and then is checked and cleaned and placed in Poe’s other arm. Ben lies, shaking, and letting them do their final wipes and Bacta packs between his legs. 

Poe beams madly at Ben, gently rocking their twins. 

“Bail likes you, too,” his mate says, as he is gently guided into a sitting position, atop a soft, foam ring to give his rear a chance to recover.   


Poe waits until he’s ready before he puts both babies in his arms. Ben looks exhausted, but pleased. The two wriggle gently, and Poe… Poe’s life is complete, now. Not that it wasn’t damn good before, but… _damn_. 

It’s perfect. They’re perfect. And nothing will ever change that.

***

The first visitors are Ben’s family. Poe’s dad got a holocall, but he’s still on Yavin IV, and they don’t want to risk either the base, or him. It’s not ideal but he promises Kes he will come get him to see his grandchildren at the first available opportunity.

Leia, Han, Chewie and Luke come to see them. Poe fusses around the bed as the two are gently passed around. It is so beautiful to see the way his in-laws’ faces light up, and how the twins reach out their smushy palms and struggle to focus their young eyes on faces.

When Bail gets to Chewie, the little boy rubs his face into his fur and Chewie makes the softest roar he’s ever heard. Bail is too young to do much in the way of co-ordination and communication, but he does paw at his fur and go very quiet. Poe feels a hand on his shoulder, and he glances up to see it’s Han. 

“You did good, kiddo,” Han tells him, then lets go and goes to talk to his son.  


Poe realises he really is part of the family, now, if Han’s ready to congratulate him. He feels so weirdly proud of that. He used to visit Ben’s house all the time, so much so that he felt like he was almost adopted, but after he Presented things had been drastically different. He’d felt for the longest time that Leia and Han blamed him for pushing Ben into his own cycle, making him emotional and driving him away. Maybe they had, but now it’s… now it’s come full circle. 

And they’re going to be the best dads they possibly can be.

Shara starts to cry, and Leia kisses her creasing brow, while Luke touches the soft, dark curls on her head. 

“I want a group holo,” Poe says.   


“Threepio’s just outside,” Luke suggests. “I’ll go get him. Everyone get into position.”

Poe takes Shara back, as Chewie hands Bail to Ben. He stands beside his mate as the Solo-Organa-Skywalker clan arranges themselves around him and his mate. _Family_.

There’s going to be a lot of holos, if Poe has anything to say about the matter.


	23. Your hands, my mouth, your mouth, my hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shara and Bail are a handful.

Your hands, my mouth, your mouth, my hands  
The weight of what we’re thinking  
No words, the air we breathe  
It’s not liquid, but we’re drinking   


***

Ben is very tired. Shara and Bail seem to have forgotten what sleep is, and they’re crying again. Poe is off somewhere, which means it’s up to him to comfort them. He’s tired, and he wants some sleep of his own. They’ve only recently fed, and he knows they’re clean, so they’re just crying from emotional distress.

Ben can’t remember the last time he slept for more than two hours. He loves them, he does, but they seem to want his presence or touch all the time, so he scoops them up and brings them to bed.

They had to wash all the bedding after the birth, but it’s already smelling right from the times he and Poe have managed to get together (and mostly pass out snoring into the other’s hair). He’s still tender in the loins, his stomach still a bit not-right, and his nipples and temporary breasts are so sensitive that whenever he brushes them past anything he hisses, so he’s comfort-nesting in the puddles of soft fabric. He climbs into bed with them both, making sure he’s not going to accidentally smother them, and starts to drift off to sleep sitting up with his back against the headboard. 

Ben doesn’t even notice when Poe enters until the bed dips gently, and his head flicks up.

“It’s just me. I’m sorry I’m late back.” Poe’s voice is soft and low, trying not to wake the slumbering nuisances.   


“They wouldn’t sleep. I think they miss me.”  


“They have been in you for nine months, feeling you through the Force, as well as physically,” Poe agrees.   


When his Alpha settles, he holds his hands out and takes Bail. He settles with the boy on his chest, a hand on his little padded butt to keep him from slipping. Ben smiles, and wriggles to do the same with Shara. He keeps watching their tiny little fists wiggle, the razor-sharp baby nails that are going to need regular trimming so they don’t claw themselves. 

Poe takes his free hand, and Ben smiles. This is nice. Just the four of them, gently resting. Poe has been helping out with more than his fair share of diaper and feeding duty. There’s bottles of milk ready for if Ben isn’t fit to breastfeed them, and the house just smells of baby smell. And sometimes _less_ pleasant baby smell, but Poe is normally here to clean those things up pretty quickly, which Ben is grateful for. His olfactory system is still keener than his normal, omega-enhanced one. 

“How are you holding up?” Poe asks, between kisses to his son’s head.   


“Okay. Other than tired. I’ll be glad when they start sleeping through for longer, I tell you.”  


“What about… you know?”  


“No sign. Not yet. I don’t know when he plans to… to interfere. They wouldn’t be much use to him before they’re weaned and capable of sleeping, after all. I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket, but…”  


“No. I understand.”  


“We need to kill him before he starts. I know I’m not fit for it, yet, but when I am… I need to help, Poe.”  


Poe doesn’t like that thought, from the wrinkling of his nose and brow. Ben doesn’t blame him, because the children would suffer if Poe had to bring them up alone. They’d still be loved and cared for, but Poe would be torn more in half, and they’d miss the love of two parents. Ben remembers the long periods with just his mother, and… he really would rather avoid that. But a life free of Snoke and no Ben would probably, on balance, be better than both of them in their lives.

“Your mother is working on a plan for that,” Poe says, reluctantly. “Rey and Luke are training a lot more. But you’re in no fit state…”  


“Not _now_. But I can be. If he’s waiting for them to wean, and be - well - able to think properly for themselves… I have a very narrow window of attack. And if all three of us go after him, it’s the best possible chance. Poe… I don’t _want_ to face him, but if I have to? For our twins?”  


His mate sighs, and holds his hand tighter. “I still don’t like it, but I understand, I guess.”

“That’s all I’m asking for.”  


***

Ben is making his own breakfast when he hears it. He pauses - spoon hanging from his mouth - to make sure it’s actually happened. Then he rushes over to where the two children are lying on the play mat, with the overhead toys just in reach. He isn’t sure who did it first, but the two are happily gurgling and cooing at one another. He crawls in over them, face between them, and smiles as they recognise him and reach for his nose and hair.

“Who’s the little chatterbox?” he asks.  


Bail babbles, and Shara sounds like she’s laughing in delight. He pushes his face into their hands, and babbles nonsense right back at them. Ben is _delighted_. He blows little raspberries into Shara’s grasping palm, and then pulls Bail’s shirt up to blow raspberries into his podgy stomach. 

When Poe comes back, they’re a mess of noisy contentment.

“They’re _talking_ ,” Ben tells his Alpha. “They’re talking.”  


They’re growing up so fast.

***

Watching them crawl for the first time is heartwrenching. Ben sits on the couch, curled around a cushion, all but biting his fist. Shara and Bail have been shuffling about on their butts for a while, now, but Shara started to push herself up on all fours. Poe’s taken it upon himself to teach them how to be more mobile, and Ben is dying watching them.

“Okay, little buddies, we got this. I know we got this. You see Da over there? We’re gonna get as close as possible to him. Hey, Bail! Bail, front and centre, little man. We good? Okay…”  


Ben knows they don’t understand his words, but they certainly recognise who is talking. They’ve started to show distinct preferences towards familiar faces, especially his and Poe’s. He can sense the relief and comfort they feel when they hear, see and smell him. He just dies all over at the sight of his three favourite people engaging in a crawl to get to him. It’s so cute he might explode.

“I’m over here,” he calls out, softly. “Come to Da.”  


“Okay, so first… assume the crawling position. Yep. Shara - good job! We get on all fours, and then we move… arm… knee… arm… knee…”  


Poe crawls very slowly, and Shara starts to mimic him. Bail rolls back onto his butt, and pulls his hands over his socks, trying to wrench them off to put them in his mouth.

“Okay, we’re going! This is Black Squadron, coming in hot. Do you read me, Mission Control?”  


“Reading loud and clear,” Ben agrees. “You are cleared for landing.”  


“And we… YES! That’s it, Shar! Keep on! You can do it! Keep that starboard engine firing! We’re…”  


Bail chooses this moment to do his patented bum-shuffle, going a lot faster than his still-wobbling sister.

“Oh no! Who is that? He’s going to beat you, Princess! Come on! We can get there!”  


Bail is laughing like a loon, now, and almost at Ben’s couch. Poe decides to cheat, scooping a twin under each arm. “We’re here! Mission Control, we’re here! Send out the welcoming party!”

Ben laughs as two babies are ‘flown’ underarm by Poe, and he waves and grins at them as they screech in pleasure. Poe hands him Bail, and they sit side by side, bouncing the children on their knees. 

“I love you,” the omega says, kissing Poe on the cheek. “Never change.”  


“I don’t intend to, Mission Control.”  


“You’re not letting that go, are you?”  


“Not until my debriefing.”  


“Poe!”  


“What? They can’t speak, yet.”  


Ben shakes his head. It’s sort of beside the point, but he does enjoy the slow, slow kiss they share. There’s a lick across his lips, a dip into his mouth, a promise of more, later. Ben noses at his face. “Later,” he promises.

“I’ll hold you to that.”  


Bail screeches like a spaceship, and Ben lifts him up to ‘fly’ overhead. “Someone’s going to be a disobedient little boy, aren’t they?”

“Nah,” Poe says. “He’s just thinking for himself.”  


“With his ass,” Ben snickers.  


“He’s still growing, you can’t blame him for using whatever tools he has at hand.”  


Bail yawns, between more happy noises, and Ben brings him in close for a cuddle. “They’re going to need a nap, soon. Let’s feed them, so they can have a good rest.”

“You’re the boss,” Poe says, putting Shara on his hip and offering his hand to Ben. “Plus, I’m getting peckish, too.”  


Ben rolls his eyes. “I hope you don’t expect me to feed _you_ whilst making X-Wing noises.”

“Nah. I’m good.”  


Although Ben is sure if he did, Poe would open wide. Of course he would.


	24. A sound that only you can hear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and Ben get their first night away from the little ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Quietly points out if you have any specific things you'd like to see my /ask over on tumblr @sithofren will happily take them from you and greedily turn into things.)

Listen when I’m silent there’s a  
Sound that only you can hear  
Listen when it’s quiet I know  
You can hear it, cover up your ears  
Cover up your ears   


***

The twins are far too young to actually understand fiction, but that’s not important. Poe’s read up plenty, and he knows that it’s essential for children to hear as much language as possible. To understand how conversation bounces back and forth between two people, to absorb the patterns of speech, so when they start to make their own, they are already immersed in what it sounds like.

Plus, they bond more with you when you talk to them. Both are pretty vocal, giggling and cooing and reaching for his clothes and hands as he sits with them both. The holopad is in front, and he has one baby on each knee as he bounces them and reads to them. Of course Shara tries to climb onto his shoulders, and Bail sucks on the edge of his jacket, but he doesn’t mind. 

You get very used to a lack of personal boundaries and an excess of saliva when you have young twins. He’s actually surprised how well Ben is handling it, but then his mate has always shown everyone wrong with his ability to move ahead, and fast. Like right now, when he’s off and doing Force training. He’s taking the physical element lightly, regaining muscle tone and power, but he’s working flat out on his control of the elements and his mind. Poe knows, because he’s coming home just as tired as he went out. It’s worrying that he’s burning his candle at both ends, but he also understands _why_. And if he tried to stop Ben from building his defences and it led to losing him or the children… Poe would never forgive himself. With that in mind, he’s taken more of the childminding duties on, trying to help out wherever he can. 

Shara shrieks when he won’t let her up high, and he thinks she’s going to be the pilot of the two. She’s much more adventurous physically, whereas Bail is normally taking things apart. “Hey… Princess… shh. I know I’ve read this before, but don’t you want to hear what happens to the Goi-goi?” 

That’s what Bail calls the droid. He even calls BB-8 that, when he’s rolling around with Poe’s astro. (And usually trying to open the sections on the side of his chassis, much to Poe’s exasperated adoration.) 

Shara seems to be intent on her ascent, so Poe carefully clambers to the floor, then lies down and puts the two children onto the floor. Bail reaches for the holopad, and Poe lets him flick at the screen with grubby fingers. Shara crawls onto his chest and tries to get onto the table. 

“Princess… what did I say? You’ll get your pilot’s licence later. Look at little Prince Bail, here. He’s fine being grounded…”  


Bail sneezes in agreement, and Poe leans to wipe his face clean. 

Ben decides to come home, then, whilst Poe’s juggling the pair of them.

“Need a hand?”  


“Your lovely little girl is trying to get up high again.”  


“She’s your daughter when she wants to climb, I told you,” Ben says. He scoops her up and puts her on his shoulders. Poe watches as she screams in delight and tugs at Ben’s hair. He keeps his hands up to support her, and walks her around with bouncing steps.   


His mate is probably right. Kes had told him stories of him as a kid, and he can’t help but see the similarities. 

“You still okay with our date tomorrow?”  


They haven’t really had a night without the kids since they were born. He knows Ben is being overly-protective for specific reasons, but it’s still hard in a way. Poe also wants to be around them all the time, but he also would like a night without diapers and snot. 

“…yes?”  


“Ben. Your parents will take care of them.”  


“I don’t doubt that, I just…”   


Shara is brought down to his lap as he sits and holds her across one knee, dancing her up and down. 

“It will be okay,” Poe tells him. “We’re not going far. Just to see Rey and Finn. And we’ll be like, ten minutes away from the kids if we need to go get them.”  


“I know. I know. I’m… I’m being silly, but I just want to keep them where one of us can see them. It’s insane, but I worry, okay?”  


“I’ll let you comm them every half hour if you need to?”  


Ben smiles. “Okay. Okay. But… if I go, and I panic, you can’t judge me, okay? I’ll be trying.”

“I won’t judge you at all,” Poe promises. “I’ll panic, too.”  


***

“But you promise you’ll call me?”  


Ben has to have asked his mother that five times already. She’s cuddling Bail, while Chewie has stolen Shara and won’t let Han do more than stare at her. 

“I promise, Ben. I will call. But there’s three of us, here.”  


“I know, but–”  


Poe puts his hands on his mate’s waist, pulling him gently back. “Let them be grandparents for a night, babe.”

“But–”  


Poe breathes close to the side of Ben’s neck, craning onto his tiptoes to do it properly. He doesn’t want to use his Alpha voice on him, but he’s prepared to. 

Ben wriggles, then concedes the point. He nods, and kisses his mother on the cheek. “Thank you.”

“We’ll take care of them, I promise.”  


Even if Shara is now trying to climb the highest she ever has on a Wookie. She’s yelling in pride as she chews and climbs up fur, and Poe has to drag Ben away before he has a heart attack.

***

Rey and Finn have been briefed by Poe (and likely Ben’s family) about his likely skittishness, so when they arrive and both of them offer (but don’t demand) hugs, he swells with pride at how their extended family is so welcoming.

Ben actually hugs them back, and lets himself be ushered into the small lounge area. There’s already little nibbles on the table, and Ben starts nervously scoffing at them to keep his hands and mouth busy. Poe doesn’t realise he’s doing the same until Finn asks them what they would like to drink, and he already has his mouth full.

Two glasses of fruit punch later (non-alcoholic) the four of them sit around. Finn has surprisingly taken more to the culinary arts than Rey, though they both ask Poe for advice regularly. Finn brings through more nibbley, finger-food things so they can keep it informal, and they chat about what they’ve been up to.

“I’ve almost clocked up enough sim hours to get some time in a real starfighter, now,” Finn explains. “Won’t be long before I’m chasing your records, Poe.”  


“You’ll have to fight me for that crown,” Rey jumps in.  


“I don’t know how you manage to fit it all in,” Ben says. “Training with Luke, and learning how to fly?”  


“How do you raise two children and train?” is her gentle response.  


“Well, I have the best Alpha.”  


Poe whacks his knee. “That’s sweet, but you don’t get any extra points for blowing my horn in public.”

Ben actually blushes, and Poe realises he’s taken the innuendo seriously, and crap. Poe hadn’t actually meant it like that. The other couple sweetly refuse to rise to the bait, and Rey gets up to get the little desserts she’s made. 

“How are they doing?” Finn asks.   


“Great. Although Bail’s decided that any time I leave him alone, he has to pull things to pieces,” Ben complains. “He’s a menace. And then he puts it in his mouth. But does he do it to the toys I get him? Nope. Always things we need.”  


“He’s going to be a mechanic,” Poe agrees. “If he stops chewing on his components.”  


“Shara’s also discovered it’s funny to throw things with the Force. We’re trying not to make a big deal of it, so she doesn’t think it’s anything special or to be worried of, but it can make things messy.” Ben’s smile is fond, his eyes warm. He looks so proud talking about them, and Poe melts all over. “It’s difficult, because we want them to grow up comfortable in using it, but not misusing it around other children. If we ban it, they’ll feel guilty and confused. It’s a fine line to walk.”  


“Are you going to let us babysit sometime?”  


“…yes. I’m… it’s hard to let them out of my sight, but… soon?”  


“I’d love to spend some more time with them,” Finn admits. “I’ve never really been around kids.”  


“Are you…?” Poe nods back to the kitchen. Rey’s an Alpha, and although it’s not obvious, people suspect Finn’s a beta or omega. Even if they don’t have biological children, they’re very much a happy couple by now, and there’s all sorts of ways to have their own.  


“Thinking, yeah. I mean. We’re planning on waiting, but I can’t lie that I’m wishing we had our own.”  


Rey joins them, putting out the little fruit and chocolate nests for them to pick at. “You telling them our secrets?” she asks.

“Hey, it’s no secret I want to start a family,” Finn says, looping an arm around her waist and pulling her down into his lap. “So if I can road test parenting…”  


Rey slaps his hand, then loops her arms around his neck. “Babies aren’t for testing.”

“It’s okay,” Poe says. “We knew what he meant.”  


Which is when Poe realises that Ben is falling asleep eating his dessert, because his mate’s eyes are going sort of distant and he’s phasing in and out of the conversation. 

“Tests bad.”   


Poe throws a ‘please be gentle’ look over to their hosts, and scoots in closer. He takes the half-eaten treat from him, and presses against his side. “Yeah, tests are bad.”

Ben sort of slumps, fighting sleep with all he has. He’s always been a stubborn one, and he watches as Rey nods and drags Finn away. “Help me out in the kitchen?”

Poe thanks them with his eyes, as Ben’s head drops and snaps up. Over and over. His omega isn’t going to last much longer, so he pulls him against his shoulder. 

“No tests,” Ben mumbles again. “Only happy. Love.”  


“Yes, dear. Only happy and love for our Prince and Princess.”  


Somehow, Ben falls asleep on him, and when Rey wanders past next, there’s a blanket draped over him. Poe is pretty tired, too, and he thanks his friend wordlessly as she slips a stool under his legs so he can recline a little, too.

“Can you comm Leia?”  


“Of course,” Rey says. “I’ll let her know you’ll be late.”  


“Thanks.”  


Ben snores softly, and Poe lets himself follow shortly after.

***

When Ben wakes, he startles in confusion. Poe jumps up straight after, finding his mate blinking around the strange room.

“What– where– the children?!”  


Poe puts a hand on his lover’s shoulder. “Safe and sound with your folks. You were tired, so we napped here.”

“What?” Ben’s clearly still half asleep.  


“You were tired, so we thought we’d let you have some rest. Your parents and Chewie are still looking after the kids. Rey promised to keep checking in with them, but they’ve settled okay.”  


“ _We abandoned our children, Poe!_ We are terrible parents!”  


Poe wraps an arm around the back of Ben’s neck and pulls him in, huffing in minor annoyance and amusement combined. “You fell asleep on a couch. You didn’t abandon them. They’re safe, and we’re safe, and everything is fine. You’re going to have to learn to let them have some freedom at some point, and your parents are about the safest place they could be. Two Generals and a Wookie? I wouldn’t risk it. And one of them is Force-sensitive.”

“But–”  


“But nothing. Come on. Shall I take you home, and we can have our first night off?”  


Ben pouts a little more, but then nods. “Okay. But we get them first thing. I’m only not going now because it will mess up their sleeping schedule.”

“Understood.”  


***

When they get back to their home, it feels weird. The baby smell is there, but there’s no snuffly noses and there’s no strange thunks of them rolling around. There’s no risk of being woken, and Poe realises he’s forgotten what it’s like to sleep through, and not sleep with one ear open for a change in breathing over the baby monitor. 

Ben is still groggy, but the walk back has woken him up, and he’s ruffling his hands through his hair and Poe’s caught by his beauty in the moonlight through the window. There’s no need to turn the main lights on, and Ben is all stark lines, pale skin, messy hair. He watches his silhouette and his heart stops.

“Poe?”  


His mate’s realised he’s being examined, and Poe steps in close. He grabs his hips, and he pulls him in, close. “I love you,” he says, as if he hasn’t said it twenty times today alone. 

“I love you, too, you idiot.”  


“If I wasn’t taking things, do you want to know how many more children you’d be carrying?”  


Ben laughs. “I can only carry one litter at a time, you know.”

“All the same, I’d make a good try of it.”  


“Are you propositioning your mate?” Ben’s eyes gleam in the low light.   


“Is it working?”  


A hand grabs his, and slides it around and behind him, pushing it under the waistband of his casual pants. Poe takes the offer and glides his hand lower, fingers pushing between the cheeks of his ass and finding the first dabs of slick, the first signs of his arousal. 

“Not ready for my knot, yet, babe.”  


“Play your cards right and I will be.”  


Poe grins, his finger not letting up. That soft little place between his husband’s legs is so sensitive, so he strokes tiny, rhythmic circles around it, making sure to switch directions every so often. He pinches his chin, pulling him down for a kiss. “I’ll show my whole damn hand, if it comes to it.”

“Once I would have said it wouldn’t fit, knot or no, but as we both know how big your children were…”  


“ _Our_ children.” And it had been a rough birth. Ben had taken quite some time to recover from it, and he does feel guilty. At least he’s back to more or less normal, now.   


“Still your fault, Dameron.”  


Poe smirks, and bites Ben’s lip, drawing his tongue around his mouth as his finger echoes the gesture around his ring, both dipping just lightly in then pulling back again. Ben’s stance changes, his legs spreading to lower himself a little, his back arching subconsciously in a ‘mount me’ pose. He moves his hand forwards, tracking some of the slick to stroke behind his balls and press down on that nice spot just between sac and holes that stimulates his mate’s prostate and makes Ben lift one leg and wrap it around his waist.

Ben has both hands on his ass, clawing and gripping as he rubs their groins together, trying for friction through their clothing. It’s a little strange to do this standing, considering the height difference, but when his middle finger moves back and pushes in, Ben is left clutching onto him and opening his mouth around a cry. He’s swaying, and Poe loves knowing how deeply he’s affecting him. 

His omega’s hands rake up, pulling his shirt free from his pants, and then his nails claw down over Poe’s back. They found a long time ago that a moderate amount of pain was good: not enough to damage, but enough to quicken the pace of their bloodstream. Ben is fond of leaving and receiving marks - more than just the claiming bite - and Poe’s aware he gets _looks_ from other pilots when they see the thin, pink lines and little bites that you can’t conceal in a shower. Poe wonders if the marks are a deliberate message to his team mates. Any which way, he approves. 

Poe breaks the kiss, that finger in as deep as it goes, swirling around inside and helping Ben’s walls slick up and spread for him, and he nudges his head back so he can find the claiming mark and bite it all over again. Ben loves that, and he starts trying to fuck himself on Poe’s hand, even though it makes them wobble where they stand. 

“Bed. Now.”  


Ben keens in protest, his thighs tightening and his leg lowering to trap Poe’s finger in him. He knows why he’s upset, because this turned on he’s going to have difficulty walking and will also hate losing the finger in him. A small sacrifice for what comes after, however. 

Poe’s finger slides out, with a little effort, and he grabs Ben’s ass, before he pulls his hand completely out of his pants and slaps his rear. “Bed.”

Reluctantly, his omega peels off from him, wobbling stiff-legged towards the bedroom. He gives a good (if awkward) show of it, and Poe wonders if his juices are dripping down his legs. Ben’s clamped his thighs as tight as he can, no doubt to keep it trapped in, and by the time he gets to the bed, his shirt’s already off. He stands at the foot, shoving his slacks down and then clamping his legs together as he moves to crawl up on the bed. His long torso is muscular and tight, the pressures of childbirth almost gone, save for the silver claw-marks that glint in the nocturnal light. 

Ben gets into position, on all fours, his back arched and his knees spreading. As they part, he reveals the pink, heated skin Poe loves to lick and bite. He’s glisteningly wet, the pucker clenching in anticipation of the reaming it’s about to get. Ben’s eyes flash over his shoulder, and he loves how happy his mate is, how ready to offer himself like this. Once upon a time, he knows this would have been anathema to him, the absolute furthest from his desires. Poe never pushed, never tried to guide Ben towards any positions or acts, other than refusing to knot him until he was ready, and in heat. He’d wanted that to be special, but he’s been content to see what Ben is ready for, and he’s never been disappointed, once. 

“You are… so beautiful,” he whispers, and strips with ease. He kneels at the foot of the bed, pushing his face into his ass to worship it. Kisses, licks, and he laves behind his balls where his finger had worried. Ben moans, riding his face, a hand between his legs clutching at his swollen cock. Poe laps at the sweet juices, letting it run down his chin and stain his stubble.   


“Oh, _Maker_ ,” Ben curses, pushing his head into the sheets. “Poe… please. I can’t remember the last time you fucked me.”  


It has been a while. And Ben keeps refusing to let Poe knot, in case the children need them when they’re tied. It’s going to feel so good, being able to have Ben’s body tight around him. Fucking and not knotting is good, but nothing like the real thing. He climbs up onto the bed and slips his dick between Ben’s legs, stroking with gentle rolls of his hips, hands up on his shoulders as he rides him without entering him. His cock pushes against Ben’s balls, and then he feels a hand holding his cock against his mate’s, and he moans at the rough and ready stroking.

“Gonna slide it in you, babe. Gonna slide it in and fuck you until it won’t come back out.”  


“That’s the general idea,” Ben agrees.  


Poe laughs, and fucks into Ben’s hand. It makes his mate’s legs shake, and he feels similarly on edge. 

“You want it?”  


“Does the part where I’m on all fours and almost begging not answer that?”  


“Still not convinced…”  


“Poe Dameron, shove that thing in me before I sit on you and do all the work myself!”  


Ben yells, but it’s loving, and when their eyes meet the joke connects like an adoring punch to the gut. Ben’s eyes are laughing, and Poe’s twinkle in return. 

“As my omega demands,” he says, and pushes himself all the way in… in one, slow, sure roll of his hips.  


His mate moans, head down into the bed, and they take a moment to enjoy the connection. No movement, just the sensation of their bond, before the tie does the same. Poe wonders if his emotions are sensed through their bond, and if so, he tries to let Ben feel how utterly adored, wanted, safe, secure and loved he is. Pours every positive feeling out that he can, and then starts to move. 

Ben’s breathing goes out the window, and his knees spread further, his back arching in lordosis, trying to offer the deepest angle, the surest way to enter him. Poe slides his hands from Ben’s shoulders to his hips, holding him as he starts to fuck him in earnest. The words mutate into soft, blurry, pleased moans and he knows Ben is as lost as he is. Since the children, his cycle hasn’t fully returned, but he definitely has moments of higher need than others. Not that they can’t make love any time they want to, but he knows when his heats come back for real, they’re going to _definitely_ take Finn up on his offer of some peace and quiet. And even the meds Poe is on don’t dull his sensation really, just mean he’s shooting blanks. He really doesn’t know why everyone is so against them for Alphas, when the omega’s system is so much more complicated. 

That’s for later, though. For now, he just slips in and out of that soft, warm, welcoming place. Slides in, and feels the way he ripples and clenches around him. Ben’s going pliant and happy, and he bends to kiss at his shoulders and whisper his ‘love you’s up to the base of his neck. Ben grins, and then the thrusting starts to become harder and harder. He’s about to knot, and he slams one last time, finding that place in his beloved that makes him scream in bliss, before he forces Ben to lie flat on the bed.

Limbs go from under them, Ben’s prick pushed into the bed, as he curls around him as his cock spurts inside. He knows Ben’s on the edge, knows he’s not come yet, but that the pulsing inside of him, the come filling him up, making him swell, the tension on the inside of his hole… he knows he’s close. His mate sobs with frustration, and Poe finds his fingers. Finds them, and laces together, kissing behind his ear. “Hold out. Hold out for me, babe. Hold out.”

Ben’s quivering, but he can tell there’s a nod, too. He rocks him into the bed, and Ben yelps in frustration, his body taut and longing. 

“Poe, please…”  


“Just a minute more.”  


Ben’s face pushes into the sheets, and then Poe grabs his hips enough to find and fist at his cock. It’s enough, and Ben screams out his release between his fingers. He messes all over the bed, thrashing and making the tie tighter in his movements. He’s so snug around him, and the moving just makes Poe’s dick spurt all the harder. Ben cries, and Poe kisses him, and then his omega collapses, beaten. Beaten, and happy.

Poe smirks, and smears his come all over his hip.

“Good boy,” he whispers.  


“Gnfgh,” is Ben’s reply. He’s fucked senseless, and Poe knows he won’t come back around for hours, now. He’ll float in that happy place, and Poe will happily smother him until he comes back down to ground.   


Poe is smug. Very. And he can’t wait for Ben’s next real heat, because this time around he’s going to be _better_. Oh very much better. For both of them.


	25. Standing on the edge of forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben continues his training under Luke.

Standing on the edge of forever,  
At the start of whatever,  
Shouting love at the world. (Take That - The Flood)  


*******

There are unspoken rules about what is and is not acceptable when it comes to the Force in the household. Obviously some things are _infra dig_ (you just don’t Force-compel your other half into _anything_ except maybe try to nudge them to bed when they’re exhausted and being unreasonable, and even then it’s a nudge, not a shove), but no one would ever criticise Ben for floating filthy diapers into the trash compactor. Well. Mostly they’d wish they could do the same. 

He’s busy powdering and re-wrapping little bottoms when the door opens and a man he hasn’t seen in over fifteen years walks in.

“Ben!”  


“Kes, you just missed the best part,” he says, and pulls the babygrows back onto his babbling monsters.   


“Yeah. Sorry. Poe got me the soonest we knew it would be safe to fly me in.” 

Poe’s father stares down at the children, and Ben pats the floor beside him. 

“Kids, time to meet your Grampa Kes. Yes… that’s him!”  


[[MORE]]

Shara determinedly wriggles into a crawling position and goes straight over to paw at his knee. Bail sucks at his pacifier for a moment, eyeing him up.

“So this is little Shara?” Kes asks, as she plops herself down in front of him, arms raised for a hug, gurgling in greeting.

“That’s her. And the one who will sneakily undo your shoelaces is Bail.”   


Bail hears his name and blinks big, brown eyes up. His hair is much darker than Shara’s, but they both are swaddled in soft curls. He also has the larger nose, and wider ears, but they do nothing but add to his charm.

Kes scoops them both up, and laughs. “Oh, they’re perfect, Ben. I’m so pleased to meet them. I’m so happy you’re back where you belong.”

“Me too, me too.”  


***

Luke and Rey are already duelling when he arrives. Ben sits back to watch them, appreciating the form. Rey is most assuredly a natural, now she’s worked out the differences between defensive staff work and offensive saber work. She’s truly a force of nature, and Luke has dulled nothing for his time in solitude.

He can spar, a little, but he’s not fully up to his old standards. It’s a slow process, though he’s getting there. Mostly he’s been exercising in private, doing katas behind their home, preparing himself to be ready for a fight. He’s still strong and he has height the other two don’t, but he knows he’s likely to be needed more for his Force abilities when this goes down. For all he broke under Snoke, he _did_ hold out for fifteen years. And now he has a reason - a real reason - not to break. Three reasons.

The fight comes to an end, and the two switch their blades off, bowing over them, and then turn to him.

“Ben… would you care to show Rey some of your technique?” Luke asks.  


“I’m not sure I’m–”  


“I’ll go easy on you,” Rey teases, lightly.

“If that’s a comment on my type…” He cocks his head, but is only verbally sparring back. Once upon a time he would have felt annoyed by any challenge from an Alpha, but now he knows he’s just as strong.   


Ben’s never been the ‘typical’ omega, after all.

“Oh no, omegas do everything we do, _plus_ they carry children. Believe me. You’re stronger than Alphas,” she replies, and he can tell she means it.  


He supposes he has to try at some point. He nods, and unclicks his saber from his belt, twisting it behind him and turning it on in the process. “Don’t forget, my form is different because of the cross-guards,” he tells her.

“So noted.”  


He hasn’t squared up against her before, but he has watched her spar with Luke, so he has an idea of her style, her tells, her range. She hasn’t seen him, so he does have an advantage in that. 

They start by circling, both whirling their blades through the air, and then Ben goes onto the offensive. He could continue with the dance, but he wants this over fast. His stamina is not quite up to his usual standards, even if his strength is back. His main advantage is really his superior height and physical power, though she is deceptively fierce, too, he knows. He brings the blade crashing down, and she expects a feint, but is ready. They crash above and to the side of her head, and he slides his blade along hers, listening to the crackle as he catches hers in the crossguard. They test one another’s strength for a moment, then she steps in - as he steps back - and he has to spring out of her reach, twirling around to block the follow-up blow. 

Duelling this in-depth has its dangers, of course, but he knows Luke is watching and is ready to intervene if he needs to.

Plus, Snoke will give no such quarter, so he needs this.

The next blow is hers, and she jabs first (an echo of her staff-fighting days, one she’s adapted into her routine) and then a sweep that could have removed a hand if he wasn’t careful. They parry blows, blocking and deflecting and the blue and red dance so fast together - hand to hand, turn to turn - that the wide room is bathed in a purple light as they push one another faster, harder.

Ben hasn’t felt his pulse run so hot without Poe in the room for the longest time. It sends a thrill of battle-pleasure through him, and his eyes go dark and hungry. 

Joy fuels him, and he doesn’t let the negative emotions in. This is about his body, his weapon, his craft. It is about his learning, his skills, and his life. He’s fighting _for_ things, for **people**. There is fear, of course. Fear of Snoke, fear of not being good enough, but he uses those as a safety-net instead of kindling for his fire. He sees the edges of his mood, and he keeps himself as even-keeled as he can.

Somewhere between the blows, he wonders if this is _his_ version of control. He’s still feeling, he’s still **loving** , but he’s not letting the emotions he doesn’t want in… rule him. Maybe _control_ was the wrong word. It isn’t the _death_ of his heart, it’s the using of his tapestry of feelings as he wants and needs. Both sides are there - positive, negative - light, dark - and he masters them both.

He doesn’t even realise he’s gone elsewhere in his head, in the battle, until he looks down and he sees he has Rey panting and fighting back with all she has. He locks his blade with hers, and their eyes meet in mutual respect. He’s gleaming lightly with the sweat, and she looks just as driven and intent. Ben isn’t sure which of them would truly win, if they continued, and that makes him happy.

“Enough,” Luke says, gently, and they step back in unison.  


Ben turns his saber off at the same time as Rey.

“That was wonderful,” Rey says.  


“You were,” he tells her.  


“Only because you pushed me there.”  


Luke beams at them both. “You’re ready.”

Ben startles. “What?”

“You’re ready, both of you. There is nothing more with that weapon that I can teach you. Now you must keep that level up, and continue your practice, and your control over the other techniques.”  


Rey meets Ben’s eyes with similar confusion, tinged with hope. “Do you think we can face him, now?”

Luke nods. “You can. And you will. I’ve seen it.”

“Seen _what?”_  


***

When Ben gets home, Kes has already fed the children. Now he’s moved in with them to help them through the early stages, it’s getting easier. Ben was wary about leaving the twins at first, but he’s slowly got used to Kes, Leia, Han, Chewie, Rey and Finn as Forceparents. Admittedly they have quite an extended family of people he trusts and who are allowed to look after them, and then quite a few more who are allowed to spend extended periods with them (but are not allowed to be solely responsible, because of specific circumstances, Temmin Snap Wexley). 

Ben - who had grown up with such a large family already, but never felt at _home_ \- is secretly over the moon with this. 

…Even if sometimes he gets jealous if other people feed his babies or put them to bed. He gets over that envy when the twins sense his presence and light up, reaching out with tiny hands and with their Force-awareness. 

The two are in their playpen, Shara chewing on her stuffed Wookie and drooling excessively, Bail trying to take the hinges apart so he can escape. Kes and Poe are sitting at the table over caf, reminiscing about the good old days. Ben smiles and watches them before he goes over, taking one of the other seats at the table.

Poe’s hand comes up to cover his, and he beams in response. 

“How was your day, babe?”  


He still blushes at the term of endearment in front of anyone - including Poe’s father - but it’s a nice blush. “Well, I think. Luke thinks we’re ready. He… he said he’s been having visions of the future. Ones that involve us fighting Snoke. He says he needs to meditate to get the details clear.”

That makes both men turn to him fully. “Do the visions say what will happen?”

“…only what _could_ ,” he tells Kes. “Point being… it’s going to happen, and soon. And… I need to know that…” Ben takes a deep breath. “I need to know that when I’m off, fighting, that the kids are safe. I… I mean I _know_ , but - I need to know there will be people who do **not** follow me.”  


Poe winces. “Yeah. I can’t say I won’t.”

“You know I will look after them and love them with all my heart, if it comes to it,” Kes says. “But it won’t. Though if you need to know, to set your mind and heart at rest: me, your mother, and everyone will help your children. And we won’t lie to them, or hide things from them. But you’re coming _back_ , son. I know it.”  


Ben nods, a weird tinge of pride at being adopted by his father-in-law so openly. “Okay. I… okay. I just… I needed to hear you promise you’d stay back, if nothing else.” A sad smile to his mate, then. “We have a habit of running to danger, instead of from.”

“But this is a good reason,” Poe insists.  


“Yes. Yes, it is.”


	26. We map the moon and the stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is not sleeping well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Just... don't read this if you don't want to be horrified with me, okay?

Back then we were like cavemen,  
But we map the moon and the stars,  
Then we forgave them.   


***

They’re getting more frequent again, the nightmares. Poe knows because he feels flickers of them. He’s pretty sure it’s something to do with their Bond, but he often wakes in the middle of the night while Ben is deep under. When he wakes then, Ben will be pale as the full moon, beautiful face turned from peace to war. Poe will shake him awake, and the warmth of his kisses will bring him back to life, but…

He shouldn’t be having them at all.  

Both of them know what it means, of course. It means that twisted fuck Snoke is reaching out again, trying to break his beloved mate back to his will. It means he’s gearing up to try a full on assault, or he’s vindictively lashing out to drive Ben mad.

Poe only sees this from the outside, and even that’s enough to almost destroy _him_. Ben tired in the mornings from the night before, dark rings under his eyes and above his thinner-lipped smiles. Dropped bottles. Counting to ten to keep his temper under control. These are just the outward signs of a very real battle, and now Poe knows the factions involved in this war - the stakes, the weapons, the rules of engagement - he can see the way Ben’s behaviour is that of a blaster-deafened veteran. He keeps most of it inside, but the spills out into the world are enough to let Poe know that things are failing. 

The worst thing is not being able to _help_. It’s one thing knowing some of what’s going on, but you can’t stop a Force-sensitive Dark Side Bastard when you’re just a lowly pilot. What hope does Poe Dameron have when Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker - and Ben himself - have all been unable to block him out? He keeps his hands gently touching, his words a constant trickle of love, and it isn’t quite enough.

Ben isn’t really _hiding_ what’s going on, or maybe he is. Maybe he’s trying, but Poe sees through it. They need to kill him, but Luke hasn’t found enough information on where he is in order to do it. He just… feels so damn helpless, watching it happen all over again. Watching, and being unable to stop it. For all they’ve all promised to love and support him… how can any of _that_ counter the non-stop venom in his head? The evil siren-song of sin? Ben held out fifteen years the first time, but he’s already been broken once, and… does that make it more likely he will relapse? Or less?

When his mate starts to withdraw from their children he _really_ worries.

“…Ben…?”  


“Please. Please, will you see to them?”  


“They miss you, babe.”  


“I know. Poe… I know. But I can’t be around them, right now.”  


“Ben… they…”  


“What? Worry I don’t love them? You think I don’t know?” Ben’s voice hitches up, and then cuts out. “I can’t. I’m… I’m too upset, and they will pick up on it. It will make them distressed.”  


Poe walks over, offering a hand, wincing when it’s flinched from. “They can tell anyway. And you’re never going to be able to hide that from them, not fully. You know what they feel, Ben. You’ve been there.”

“Yeah, and I remember hating feeling like that. You _can’t_ ask me to make my children feel **afraid** when they should just… Poe, _please_. It’s safer if I–”  


“What?” He wraps his arms around himself, biting his lip.  


“I need space. I just - I need space. Let… let me go, Poe. _Please_.”  


What do you do? What do you do when your lover begs for solitude? Do you let them go, do you chase them? What’s the right answer? Is there one?

“…let me come with you?”  


“The twins need you.”  


“Ben!”  


“Just… please. I won’t be gone long. I swear. Just… let me get some air.”  


Poe watches him leave and splits in two.

***

Ben needs space. He needs space. He needs to be away from people he could hurt. He still remembers how–

– _the feel of a saber hilt meeting ribs the sweet way after the first resistance every last push in was like a knife through butter the satisfaction in seeing their light dim out in knowing you were stronger–_

_–the dark way his pulse would rise and his body thrum when he ripped through someone’s mind and tore their memories from them or–_

_–the fearfeelgood of power, so much power, so much there, just there, so close, so easy to tap into, just feel, just feel, just let your heart open and it was there and you could do be have **A N Y T H I N G** –_

It’s not that he **wants** it, but he knows that his - that… he’s broken. He is. No matter what good Poe sees in him, he’s broken. Broken for wanting any of this, in the first place. Broken for letting it happen. Broken for sometimes wishing it still _did_. And even if he wasn’t, then how could… how… could he raise children? He’d slaughtered so many, so many people. He’d killed, and he’d wreaked so much havoc, so much pain. He was filthy, through and through. 

He couldn’t raise children. He would either warp them, or they would grow to see him for what he was and never respect him. They would find out their father, their omega, was a weak and pathetic monster.

He can’t. He can’t do that to them. He can’t. 

Ben is _wrong_. He tried to be right. He tried even to be mostly-right. He did everything anyone could want of him. He renounced the Order, he helped them save lives. He mended bridges. He found love. He carried lives within him, brought them out into the world… and it’s still _not enough_.

If it was, if it was… he would not feel like this, right now. He would not feel so mangled. He would not remember the goodbad feelings, he would not let the _voice_ back in. He would listen to the **other** voice, the _voice of reason_ , which sounds eerily like Poe. He would listen to Logic and Sense and Family. He would know that this is a transient feeling, or that he could wish it away. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? _Wish it away_. You were supposed to be stronger than the Darkness. You were supposed to know that it was trying to make you fall, and _not let it._

He can’t do those things, which is how he knows he’s beyond saving. He hears the sensible thoughts, knows why he should believe, and he doesn’t. Or - he can’t **feel** it. He _knows_ in his head, and his heart is another thing. Which means he’s crazy. Which means he’s damaged. Which means he can’t - won’t - ever… he can’t change, he…

Ben is wrong. He has always been wrong. He had to be, or else he would never have left the first time. He had to be, or else he would be fighting off this terrible _malaise_ right now. He… he…

**s C R e A MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmMMMMs**

on his knees

         on his knees in the grass

                 a hand on his shoulder

                         a hand and it isn’t

                                       it                        isn’t

_there_

***

Poe feels the shockwave of agony through the Force, pushed by his mate. He feels the terrible riptide of hurt, fear, anger, despair… and then nothing. He yelps in shock, and his eyes meet Kes’.

“Go.”  


Poe doesn’t even wait. He runs out into the night, desperate to find Ben. Ben’s in so much pain, so very much pain. He swore he’d protect him, swore he’d keep him safe. He has to find Ben, has to - do whatever it takes. Wrap him up so tight he can barely breathe. Funnel cakes down his throat until the sugar makes him smile. Knock him out with kisses and the drugged oblivion if it comes to it. He has to do _something_. 

He runs through the night, finding Rey and Luke there. They’ve felt it, too. They’ve felt it. It’s all going to hell and Poe can’t take it, he can’t. He can’t take it. He needs Ben, and Ben isn’t here, and there’s arms around him and he **lashes out** and hits and kicks and claws as he’s wrestled to the ground by an Alpha barely over half his age. He screams in horror, the terror of the truth just too much for him to process.

Ben.

He–

Ben is. Gone.


	27. We will meet you where the lights are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is sleeping now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: threats of non-consensual sexual intercourse, but no actual acts. Medical horror.

We will meet you where the lights are,  
The defenders, of the faith we are.  
Where the thunder turns around they’ll run so hard we’ll tear the ground away.   


***

When Ben wakes up, he feels groggy. The kind of groggy where sleep wasn’t sleep, and the fact that he knows how that feels… yeah. There’s something sloshing around in his system. He’s still half-drugged, and he can barely move.

The inside of his mouth is like a Tauntaun’s rear end, his head feels stuffed with swamp muck, and the gravity feels dialled up to eleven. He’s strapped down, or is it just that he can’t move? His head tries to turn, but that leaves the inside of his gourd sloshing and he has to stop.

He can’t feel… he can’t feel the Force. Not… properly. It’s so far at a remove, and he understands the sedation at last. It’s to make him safe. It’s to stop him hurting anyone. They’ve finally understood what he’s capable of, and locked him away.

 _Good_ , he thinks, and drifts back off to not-sleep, not-wake.

***

Distantly, he’s aware there’s hands. They roll him, pat his forehead, press metal against him. Cold. It’s cold. They don’t warm it. They don’t need to. He’s in this semi-peaceful oblivion for the longest time, drowning in the emptiness. 

There’s no emotional connection to the world. He is aware there should be one, but it isn’t there. He’s aware there should be distress, and he can even imagine the shape and taste of it in his mouth, but it isn’t there. 

Nothing is there.

There is nothing. He is nothing.

The drugs make sure of that, keeping him dull and grey. It prevents the Dark in him from rising, and stops the Light from hurting his eyes and soul. 

He thinks of Poe, and their children. From far away he knows they will be sad he is gone, but he knows it is better for them that he is. It is better. It is better.

He is nothing. The Force is so far gone, and he wonders if this is how ‘normal’ people feel. No highs, no lows, no whirlwind loveheat, no maelstrom hatecold. Is this what it should be? Is he anything without the Force? 

It would be kinder to kill him. Easier, too, than this endless prodding. He cannot be fixed, and so they should not try. He is a thing too far gone, and–

–easier to close his eyes than scratch at that wall in his mind. On the other side lies _feeling_ , and with feeling comes **pain**. It is a pain he is not capable of bearing, and so he feels nothing at all.

***

“… _need to reduce the sedation enough…”_  


_“That’s too dangerous.”  
_

_“Restrain him, then. He’s been docile so far.”  
_

_“Because of how much we’re pumping into him. You do realise what a Force-sensitive like him is capable of, don’t you?”  
_

_“You don’t need to remind me! But the Supreme Leader wants him fertile. The best chance for his body to recover is to allow more of his **body** to function.”  
_

_“I don’t understand why he doesn’t just induce a heat. He could shoot him full enough of hormones that he’d drown us all in slick.”  
_

_“Yeah, and risk birth defects. He wants it natural.”  
_

_“Nothing natural about breeding broken stock. Look at him… he’s already claimed, and he’s already littered.”  
_

_“So he’s proven. First litter is often whelps, from an omega, anyway. Such unstable things.”  
_

_“Yeah, like you’re such a wonderful example of–”  
_

_“Shut up.”  
_

_“We can step back the sedatives until he starts cycling again, i_ _f he’s dead set against harvesting.”_

_“He is. He wants to breed it properly. Then we’ll use the natural protective instinct to keep him in check. Better not to have sedatives in the milk, you know.”  
_

_“Assuming he doesn’t just brain the pups.”  
_

_“We’ll make sure he doesn’t.”  
_

Oh, Ben thinks. More people want him to have children. 

Oh.

 **He** wants children. Makes sense. No wonder he’d left the twins alone. Snoke wouldn’t want infants he didn’t control every aspect of, if given the choice. It makes sense he’d want a fresh, clean slate. 

He doesn’t want to be bred again. It was exhausting the first time, and he’ll just have more children not to feel anything about. 

That’s exhausting, too.

***

“I can’t feel _squat_ ,” Poe yells, not even caring if he makes sense or not. “I’m not a Jedi.”  


“I never said you were, Poe. But you _are_ linked to one.”  


“Yeah, so he can read my mind and see through my eyes. You getting the general direction of how this…” he waves a hand between himself and the invisible… invisible Ben. “Works?”  


“It works both ways, Poe. He can hear your pain, and you can call to him.”  


“Don’t you think I’ve been _trying_? You think I’ve just been sitting on my ass and pretending like I haven’t just lost my **mate** , who I love with all my heart, who is off somewhere _hurting_ and who I am supposed to **protect** , and who I didn’t even _**protect the first time around**_?” He’s being unreasonable with someone who is trying to help, but all he can see is another person failing, again.  


All they do is fail him. All they ever do is fail him.

Poe was an idiot for thinking he could ever be good enough to be Ben Organa-Solo’s mate. He’s a fucking failure, and now he’s gone and made it _worse_. Now he showed Ben what happiness could be, before he let Snoke rip it from him. He showed him love, family… and now he has neither. And there’s two twins who need him to be strong, but Poe _can’t be_  because _Ben is gone_ and nothing he does brings him back.

“Poe… you have to keep trying.”  


The hand on his shoulder feels wrong, and he wants to shrug it off, but he’s so tired of fighting.

“I don’t know how.”  


“This… this is how you save him. We find him, and we defeat Snoke, and he is free forever.”  


“I’m not - I’m not _strong_ enough. I don’t have the Force, I’m just–”  


Luke Skywalker grabs the back of his head, and pushes himself into Poe’s mind. It doesn’t sting the same way it had with - with _Kylo_ \- but the sensation is far from pleasant. 

***

He can feel more. He thinks. Must be the sedatives lessening in his system. They said they would do that, didn’t they? Or did he dream it? He’s having a hard time picking out reality from the _other thing_ , these days. Dreams, memories, futures. It’s all one hazy mess, and he doesn’t even know his own names some days.

Some days he is _sure_ he is **Ben**.

Other days Ben is _dead_ , there is only **Kylo**.

Some days he is neither, and he doesn’t have a name. Doesn’t even have a face, or an identity whatsoever. He’s - he isn’t sure he even **is**. 

It’s all so confusing.

He feels weak. He knows that. Weak. Which implies at another time he was _strong_. Yes? No. Yes.

BenKyloSomeone stretches, feeling for the ends of his freedom. The amount of his restraint, the tightness and the give and the give-not. Take. Take, is give-not. He stretches and feels his body as _longer_ than he remembers. Taller. Wider. He doesn’t fit inside, he’s rattling around a bigger box. Little thoughts, little self. Big self. Big, big, big.

 _Omega_.

He wonders if he can feel the start of things moving. Cycle, they call it, like it’s a wheel that simply turns headoverheeloverheadoverheel. It’s infinitely more complex, and ridiculously more simple. When he goes into _heat_ they will find an Alpha to stud him. He will be filled, bred, mated until he fulfils his purpose. Swollen with children. How many will Snoke want? An army? In case some of them turn out _wrong_ , or _weak_ like their father? Will he get to hold them? Will he even want to, or will he feel nothing? Will he feel, but will it be hate?

Hate would help Snoke. Snoke would want them to feel that, too.

Easier.

Easier.

A flicker, somewhere. A sense, a taste, a sound. A - no. None of those. It’s more a - more a _whole thing_ \- like a whole-body feel. Or something not-body. A familiar **thing** , a sure point. Steady, unwavering. It feels so out of place, now, when he is so lost at sea.

“…Poe?”  


“Ben. Ben, it’s me. We are coming to save you. We’re coming to save you. But you need to tell us where you are.”

Ben - Ben, yes, Ben, now - shakes his head. “Can’t. Can’t move. Can’t. Don’t know. Need… to leave me.”

“BEN ORGANA-SOLO DAMERON I AM NOT LEAVING YOUR SORRY ASS BEHIND.”

Alpha voice. _His Alpha_. A shudder, a feeling of _readiness_  and - _ohnonononononono_ if he’s ready they will want to seed him, want to hold him down and violate him all the more. NO.

“Poe, Poe… they… he wants to… Poe…” Frantic, suddenly, the reality eking through the porous gaps in the membrane. “Poe… he wants to _mate me_.”

“ **Like fuck he’s going to use you any more. You get the fuck up. You get the fuck up, and you tell me where the hell you are**.”  


“ _I can’t_.” He tries, but he’s not strong enough. The cuffs around him are heavy, and his sense of the world is dull and muted. He tries to find the locks inside, but it’s like trying to thread a needle with your eyes closed and thick, woollen mittens on your fingers. He tries and–

“Thank your uncle,” Poe tells him.  


“Luke?”  


“How the hell do you think I got in your head?”  


“Well, I could be delusional. I am somewhat medicated, right now.” Ben pulls his arms and legs free from the cuffs and wobbles to his feet. He’s wearing a ridiculous, open-backed gown. No doubt so they can access his key anatomy better, to check his readiness. He feels sick at the thought of the hands on him, and sways so hard he nearly falls over.  


“Ben!”  


“Trying.”  


The room is locked, and the best weapons he can find are a pair of surgical scissors and a small laser tool. He decides on dual-wielding, and pushes the gurney in front of the door, moving to stand to the side of it, pressed against the wall. He can hear the distant klaxons sounding, and he knows they’ll come running. 

Wait.

Wait.

Medical room…

Before they get here, he pushes through drawers. He finds a combined-hypo and dials for stimulants and adrenaline, along with endorphins. Might as well go down in a heart-exploding fit, right? He jabs it against his exposed thigh, hissing as it rushes through his system.

He’ll pay for that, later.

“I can hear them, Ben.”  


“Me too.”  


He does. He gets back into position and waits. The idiots open the door and he doesn’t even need the Force to take them out. His mind just goes into that _place_ , that place he’s been trained and honed into, for decades. Puncture, slice, push. Enough to incapacitate, but not to kill. The flood of chemicals through his system gives him an unnatural strength, and he kicks out into the narrow passageway, using one of the troopers as a Human shield. He uses the man’s blaster to wound three more… and then he’s running at full speed down a corridor, flashing his ass when a whole contingent of heavily armed Stormtroopers arrive as backup.

“ _Is this your idea of a rescue?”_ he snarls.  


“Just find out where the ship is! Read someone’s mind!”  


“Read someone’s– that’s _not_ how the Force works, I can’t just call up the holonet enquiries of the ship and find out who knows where we are!”  


“You’re on the _Finalizer_ , we think. Find Hux.”  


Find Hux. Right. A Star Destroyer worth of people who want to kill him, and he somehow has to survive _and_ find the General to work out his loc–

…no, he doesn’t need to. Ben halts. Think, think. He used to pluck access codes as a game. He knows which staff are too dumb to change them often enough. He also knows his face was hidden for years, so unless someone’s been briefing people other than the medical staff, he really only stands out because of the hospital gown.

Right. Where won’t they look? Where is the least likely to present an alluring target for stealing weapons and forming a barricade? _Sanitation_. There’s plenty of civilian staff there. He can steal a uniform and _no one will even look twice at him_ because no one ever **does** look at the grunts. He doesn’t even need a blaster. He can sign on with someone’s credentials, find their location, and hide amongst the minions.

“You’re a genius,” Poe says, in his ear.  


“Tell me that when you get me off here, safe and sound.”  


“Babe, I’ll tell you over and over. But–”  


“But what?”  


“Luke says we don’t just rescue you. You face Snoke.”  


His blood runs cold, even as he slips through maintenance corridors, finding the locker room and forcing the locks until he finds half-tolerable clothing. “I can’t feel him aboard. If he is…”

“No. You’re going to dock with his ship.”  


“So we need to know where we’re _going_ , then?”  


“No. He’s coming to you.”  


“…any idea how soon?”  


“Soon. Get us the location, Ben. We’re coming.”  


They better be. 


	28. Through our love drowned eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and co to the rescue.

You know no one dies, in these love drowned eyes,  
Through our love drowned eyes, we’ll watch you sleep tonight.   


***

Poe’s eyes open. Or - no. Sight comes back. They were open all the time, but the vision through Ben had been overwhelming.

“Is… is that how you _always_ feel?” he asks the Jedi Master in front of him.  


“Something like that, yes.”  


Poe’s sense of it ebbs somewhat, the weird shared space of their three-way conversation thing. The way he’d felt in Ben’s - head? Body? It becomes more distant, more difficult to grasp. His own aches, now, his temples throbbing with the stretched consciousness. 

Luke goes over to the comm, telling Han where to fly the _Falcon_ , and Poe rubs hands over his face to try to calm down the discomfort. The whole party that came to rescue _him_ is here, and the echoing symmetry is not lost on him. 

“They drugged him,” Poe says, sounding disgusted.   


“That’s why he couldn’t reach out to you.”  


“They _drugged_ him. They kidnapped him, and drugged him, and treat him like he’s some - some - _animal_ …” Poe’s blood is boiling. His poor mate. He’d been missing for three days before Luke grabbed them all and told them to get onboard the _Falcon_ without even a destination.

“We’re going to get him home.”  


“But - but I let them _take him_!”  


Luke looks older, then, and his bright eyes close. “I let them take him, too. I wasn’t his mate, but I was his Master, Poe. But we’re going to get him home. We know where he’s headed, now. And he’s awake, and alive, and he’s resourceful.”

“But… Snoke… what if… what if he…?”  


“Didn’t you see… he had to sedate him. Poe… he had to drug Ben to keep him from resisting. He doesn’t have control over him, not any more. No matter how much he might hurt him, Ben _will not_ fall again.”  


Poe doesn’t know how Luke can tell that it’s that, that problem, that is tormenting him. Maybe it’s a Jedi thing, or maybe he’s thinking the same thoughts Poe has, a few steps ahead of him. 

“Okay.”  


“We’ll get to him.”  


“Okay.”  


***

Ben wonders why everyone has to be so short. He’s had to pull his stolen socks over the top of his overalls to hide the fact he’s far too tall for his clothes. Now he just looks like he has no fashion sense, instead of like he’s trying to hide in someone else’s wardrobe. 

He grabs a mask and slips it over his head, tucking his hair under the band. He grabs something that looks like it goes into places people don’t _want to_ , which further adds to the disguise. No one ever wants to look at someone who has seen their effluence, after all. Especially not when they might smell of it. It’s a normal, Human instinct to be disgusted by waste matter.

Poe’s not in his head any more, but he can sort of feel him, now. In the distance. It’s hard when he’s still so groggy, and without any help, but he knows Poe is okay and coming for him. 

His memory is sort of hazy, and he tries to piece through it as he rummages through lockers (an ear open for anyone approaching) looking for anything helpful. He remembers snatches of conversation, hands and metal. He’s fairly sure he’s just… just been…

Ben doesn’t even want to think about it. He doesn’t want to consider the possibility of what kind of disgusting intrusion and violations might have happened, but he’s pretty sure none of them have been of a _personal_ nature. If they really were waiting for his cycle to kick in, then he’s - he’s - Poe won’t be… his honour is intact. Yes. That.

Honour, but not dignity. 

He feels filthy even thinking about it, and he fights a wave of nausea that _could_ be linked to the drugs, or could just be his reaction to the possibilities. When he gets off here, he is going to scrub himself from head to toe until there’s no skin still left on him that ever touched this ship. 

No one comes down, and he’s starting to feel a little nervous. Do they know? Did they track him on the sensors? Is there a garrison out front, waiting to shoot his ass full of tranquillisers? There’s footsteps in the distance. Not precise, not military. Are they trying to throw him off?

Ben tries to reach out with the Force to get a sense of them, but it’s still a little too murky. He can’t feel any outright hostility, fear, or the dead space of someone blocking him, so he tries to appear relaxed. Relaxed, and tying his shoelaces.

“Oh, hi, Ma— uh… who are you?”  


“…P-uh… Puh. I’m new.”  


“Puh?”  


“Yeah. It’s a family name.” Shit. Why didn’t he think this through better? He should have spent this time crafting his new identity.  


“…well, Puh, you gonna stand around all day, or you gonna come with me?”  


Fuck. “My shift’s sort of–”

“I don’t care. Log the overtime. We’ve got an incident in Bravo-Three.”  


Ben bites his lip. Maybe if he plays along he’ll be able to get around the craft in company, and therefore look normal? He _does_ need to find some way to get across to the ship they’re due to dock with, after all. “Okay.”

“Good man. And for the love of the Force, would you _not_ do that with your socks?”  


***

“How are we going to get there… undetected?”   


Finn asks all the right questions, Poe thinks, as they crowd in the cockpit. The _Falcon_ isn’t equipped with any kind of cloak, and it’s not exactly a subtle vessel. The ship that helped destroy two _Death Stars_ , the _Starkiller_ and is owned by none other than Han Solo. General. Husband of Leia Organa, forefront of the Resistance. Parent to Ben Organa-Solo, currently the First Order’s prisoner.

You can’t go around hiding something like that.

“We’re not,” Han says, confirming Poe’s suspicions.   


“So we’re…?”  


“Gonna drop out of hyperspace pretty much on top of the damn thing, and try to find a hole to fly in.”  


Finn looks despairingly at everyone else. Poe has pity on him, because he and Rey have the least experience with the kind of stunts that the Resistance regularly have to pull. Especially the kind that Han Solo pulls.

“Is everyone okay with this?” Finn pleads.   


“It’s the best plan,” Luke reassures him.  


“…okay. I still think you’re all crazy.”  


“We are,” Poe admits.  


The ship kicks into normal space, and Han immediately banks up and port, trying to avoid the huge not-empty-space thing ahead of him. Poe’s fingers itch to grab the controls, and he has to close his eyes. He’s not good at being a backseat driver, no. Absolutely not. 

“Okay… everyone brace. I’m going in hot, so you better be ready to board and bring my boy back home.”   


“Believe me,” Poe says, blaster in hand. “I’m ready.”  


Inside the Super Star Destroyer, and they hit the ground running.


	29. We were holding back the flood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aboard the Supreme Leader's capital ship, our heroes face violence of more than one kind.

Although no one understood we were holding back the flood,  
Learning how to dance the rain.  
We were holding back the flood they said we’d never dance again.  


*******

“Is there a ‘you must be this short to be useful’ rule, or something?” the technician glares up at Ben.  


“Quite possibly,” he agrees. “Being tall has never been much use to me.” Except in fights, but he could easily make up for any physical deficiency with his Force powers. It was more useful for the air of menace and intimidation he’d cultivated back when he had a different name.  


“Well, we need to get everything sorted before we dock with the other ship. Some high up on it.”  


Some ‘high up’. Didn’t she realise that it was the Supreme Leader? Ben wonders just how much the average First Order worker knows about the organisation they work for. Speaking to Finn had been one hell of an eye-opener. “Where will we dock with them?”

“What?”  


“Which… side? Port, starboard…?”  


“…the hell do you need to know for? The crappers flush into space, plunger-brain. That’s the only direction you need, and there’s no such thing as direction in space.”  


But Ben can feel the shadow of his presence - _his presence_ \- all of a sudden. A heavy, malevolent cloud of age and malice. He’s never been in the Leader’s **physical** presence, always kept at a distance. Still, Snoke had been strong enough to reach through lightyears to influence him, and Ben knows that _signature_ anywhere. Snoke is here, and he’s too drugged to bl– no. He doesn’t need to block himself. Snoke knows he is here, and likely knows he’s wandering the corridors of the _Finalizer_. 

The woman is looking at him funny. “I’m sorry,” he says, and pushes her consciousness under. He carries her to a closet, propping her upright, grabbing her ident and walking towards the sensation of evil.

***

Poe doesn’t know how Luke managed to talk Han into staying onboard the _Falcon_. He’d been sure the man would insist, but they need a pilot ready. They need a pilot, and both Rey and Luke’s Force powers are needed, Finn can’t fly, and Poe isn’t going to let his mate be rescued by other people. Especially not when his Bond with him might help find him. Absolutely not. 

Chewie and Finn are on duty guarding the outside of the freighter, Han in the cockpit, and Poe is with the two Jedi. Or just behind, anyway. He rings out his blaster fire against the waiting troopers, but really the majority of the damage is done by whirling blue and green blades. Jedi really are a terrifying thing, even when they’re on your side. Poe watches with a bittersweet pride, knowing his beloved would be just as beautiful (well, more so) if he were here and fighting, too. 

Soon. He tries to think comforting thoughts through the ether, hoping Ben can find him, now he’s closer. There’s some sort of answering warmth inside his mind and an intangible sensation of worried hope. He thinks that must be Ben.

“Is anyone going to say the obvious thing?” Poe asks, as Luke stands before the closed blast-doors and Rey opens the controls and hacks her way through them.  


“It’s most certainly a trap.” Luke does not sound at all worried.  


“Right. And this is not bothering you… why?”  


“Because we’ll win.”  


Is it Jedi-foresight, or is it the confidence of a skilled professional, or just the natural hope of a man who has conquered the Dark so often? Poe doesn’t know, but he’s struck by the older man’s grace, dignity and poise. He’s an omega, and he’s one of the most powerful people alive, like Ben is. He’s strong, compassionate, and loving.

And yes, he made mistakes, but he is only too happy to own up to them, to try to fix them. The door opens, and Poe slips behind them, taking up the rear, blaster ready to cover their sixes as they advance, following some invisible, Force-drawn dotted line. It’s still unsettling, being the only insensitive one, and he wonders if this is how Ben’s father used to feel.

Maybe even still does.

Hmm.

It’s possible he needs to have a serious talk with Han Solo when all this is done. He’s sure they would both benefit from sharing coping strategies.

***

Ben can feel them. He can. There’s the Darkness ahead, but also… _Light_. Light. Poe. Poe, Rey, Luke… more distantly Han, Chewie, Finn. They’re here. They came for him, even though he was an absolute asshole right before he left.

He remembers that, remembers acting out under the memories, the weight of his past sins. He remembers the fear he’d felt, but right now the fear is reduced in intensity. Snoke either cares less about controlling him, or maybe he doesn’t have the same hold when the Light is so close by.

Ben pauses inside the maintenance duct he’s scaling, crossing from one ship to the other. _Don’t go in without me_ , he thinks, loudly.

The crawl across is untroubled, and when he comes out of the shaft aboard Snoke’s flagship, he knows they’re near. The Force, perhaps, or his uncle and Padawan using it to get them all together. Ben stands, listening and-

They turn around the corner, and he runs straight at Poe, ignoring the other two. They move out of the way, allowing the tall omega to grab and grip his mate, lifting him in a twirl and kissing his face frantically.

“You came for me,” he whispers.  


“Of course we came for you,” Poe growls back at him.  


“I was such an asshole.” He remembers that. Pushing them away, pushing their _children_ away. “I didn’t– I didn’t mean…”  


The arms around him tighten, and he feels Poe kissing him furiously, all but shaking in his grip. “You were hurting, and you were trying to protect them from your pain, Ben. You didn’t do anything wrong, except maybe push _me_ away. But don’t you **dare** feel guilty, okay? You didn’t want this. And we’re here to help you.”

He gulps, and nods, and gently lets his Alpha’s feet touch the ground again. “Okay.”

“We talk about this when we get home, okay? But I mean it: you do _not_ get to beat yourself up about this. If anything, I shouldn’t have let you run off. But we got you, now. We got you.”  


Ben shudders, and slowly lets go of him. “I’m afraid I don’t know where my saber is. I woke up in a medical bay, without any of my things. Hence this…” he waves at the jumpsuit, “–monstrosity.”

“We can handle the physical element,” Luke says. “But we’re going to need your help with the mental one.”  


“…don’t know if you noticed, but I kind of got my head f– uh, messed up for a while,” Ben replies. “And I’m barely standing, on a cocktail of drugs that I likely don’t even know how to pronounce.”  


“You can meditate to purge that from yourself, as we go along,” Luke says. “And don’t underestimate yourself. You woke up from that slumber they kept you in, and they needed to do it in the first place.”  


Rey pats his arm, kindly. “You didn’t give up fighting, Ben. I knew. I had faith in you.”

Ben fights a sudden prick of emotion in his eyes, nodding. “Okay. We should get this over with. Once and for all.”

***

The audience chamber is even bigger than expected. Snoke is not as tall as his holo-presence suggested, but he’s certainly taller than he has any right to be. A face scarred even more visibly, up close. He towers above them, and his face is curled into an unpleasant, predatory snarl.

“So the prodigal son returns, with others to fight his battles for him?”  


“I came with my _family_ ,” Ben snaps. “To defeat you.”  


“Snoke, this ends now,” says Luke. “I would ask you to surrender, but we both know you won’t.”  


“Surrender to a weak Jedi who ran to hide from the power I have?” Snoke clucks his tongue, rising with dangerous ease. “Hardly likely.”  


Ben watches as the blue and green flanking him twirl into life, and then… all of a sudden… Poe yells and grabs his blaster. Ben feels the movement before he turns to watch it, and Poe is holding his sidearm to his temple.

The world sort of stops as fear flares through him, and their eyes lock. “Poe…”

“I could make him pull. Right now,” Snoke preens. “I think I–”  


## “ **NO**.”

Ben slams into Poe’s head without permission, eyes locked on his lover, rushing through his mind, along the Bond, finding the grip on the blaster and holding it still. 

“Ben…” Poe sounds afraid, but not of him.  


Of _him_. Of the _monster_.

“I’ll keep you safe,” Ben promises, and pushes harder at the Darkness inside of Poe’s mind.  


“You coward,” Rey spits. “Fight us.”  


“Says the one with three beside her,” Snoke mocks her.  


Ben doesn’t even need to look to watch how Rey leaps at him, his tone inciting something Dark inside of _her_. 

“Rey… be mindful,” Luke insists, as he charges into battle, too.  


Ben has no weapons, cannot help with the physical clash. He hears the hum of three sabers cut through the air, sees flashes of their lights reflected on Poe’s face. He gazes deeper into his mate’s eyes, reaching up a hand to the blaster. 

“Poe… we’re going to beat him. You trust me, don’t you?”  


His Alpha nods, and Ben watches his throat work. He can feel the turmoil and panic and frustration rising, and he recognises it in himself. He remembers what it felt like, to be sure you had no choice but to obey. But they do, they do. Ben blazes an image of their children through to Poe, flares happy memories of kisses and cookies and the light glinting through the window to draw a golden band around their joined hands. 

He’s not going to win with anger, fear, pain. He’s not even going to win with peace, he could only ever win with:

“I love you,” Ben tells him. “I love you. We’re going to win.” His fingers push the blaster away from Poe’s temple, and then he feels Poe’s hand let it go, clattering to the ground.   


Overjoyed, Ben grabs Poe in a bear-hug, and then he turns on Snoke. He keeps one arm around Poe, and throws a wall of pure **love** , love for Poe, love for Shara and Bail, love for Leia, Han, Chewie, Luke, Rey, Finn. He doesn’t even care if it’s ‘Light’ or ‘Dark’, he just knows Snoke is the opposite of love, and love has saved him.

“You idiot boy,” Snoke yells, and tries to push back at him. “You weaken yourself.”  


“On the contrary,” Ben snaps back, “I’ve never been stronger.”  


He reaches deep down inside and **slams** with every last emotion he can find, some sad, some angry, some not. It doesn’t make him feel _Dark_ , and then he watches as Rey and Luke’s blades get under Snoke’s guard. 

Rey hits him, first. A scored mark from hip to stomach. Luke’s the next, slicing his dominant hand clean off. There’s a horrible scream, and the room goes _black_ with an inky intent, a last-ditch attempt to smother things. He doesn’t know if it’s real, or another trick of the mind, but it feels real enough. Only the glow of the two blades cuts through, and Ben yells and shoves the murky sense back. 

Ben grabs the red blade from where it lies on the floor, and he throws it like a javelin. The glowing plasma arc embeds deep in Snoke’s chest, and then the two Jedi finish him off.

And he’s gone.

Just like that, he’s gone.

He’s gone, and so is the weight on his mind.

 _The Supreme Leader is dead_.

Ben never thought he would see the day. His abuser is dead, and - and - he’s 

##  _free._


	30. Here we come now on a dark star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben isn't sure how he could fit back into his life after what happened with Snoke.

Bleeding, but none of us leaving,  
Watch your mouth son or you’ll find yourself floating home.  
Here we come now on a dark star, seeing demons, not what we are.  
Tiny minds and eager hands will try to strike but now will end today.   


***

Once Snoke is dead, nothing - outwardly - changes. It’s surreal. They stand above his corpse, and Ben doesn’t know what happens next. What does happen next? He’s spent thirty-odd years wanting the _voice_ gone, and now he is. 

Gone. He’s dead. There. He felt his Dark presence falter and fail, and the chains are - technically - broken. He is _free_. 

He has no idea what he does next, and he feels a hand on his.

“Ben…”  


“Huh.”  


“We gotta go.”   


Poe. Pulling his hand. Ben tries to memorise this tableau, tries to internalise it forever. Maybe later it will make sense.

There is no sudden onslaught of Stormtroopers, not even Knights of Ren. No one but these four notice his passing, and in a way, it’s almost sad. Almost. It’s almost as if the monster never planned for his possible death, so no one runs in. He was so sure of himself that he didn’t think two Jedi, a fallen Jedi, and a pilot could be the death of him.

But they were. They are. He’s gone.

Poe pulls him, and Ben follows.

***

Back aboard the Falcon, Ben wiggles his feet until Chewie finally lets him go, and smiles blankly at Finn. His father’s in the cockpit, of course, and now they have to escape. Everyone moves to do their thing.

This part he can’t help with, of course. He can’t fly. He feels the banking and turning, and he knows Finn is in one of the gunnery positions, Luke in the other. Han and Chewie up front. Rey glances at them, and then leaves them in peace. Ben doesn’t know where she goes. It’s a small ship. It won’t be far.

“Babe… is it okay if I run a scan on you?” Poe asks.  


Ben nods, mutely. Maybe it’s the exhaustion from the meds. He did have to hop himself up quite badly, after all. He watches as Poe grabs a small medical device, listening to the beeps and biting his lip at the memory of it. Lying, incapable of moving, listening and–

It just happens. All at once. He’s reclining back in the little booth to one side, and suddenly he’s crying. It just hits like a podracer to the chest, and the agony rips out of him. Poe’s arms wrap around him, and Ben howls in frustration, anger, rage, sadness… everything. Every possible negative emotion smacks into him all at once, the reaction to his capture and abuse. The fear he’d never been able to face up to, the fear he’d be held down and taken against his will. The horror of carrying blameless children he’d not know if he should hate or not. The loss of control over the slightest decisions: unable to eat, drink, move, think. Being trapped inside his own head, and knowing that this was _his fault_ for not holding back the **voice** , for falling back under Snoke’s control. 

For knowing Snoke is dead, he’s dead, and Ben isn’t under his bastard thumb any more. For not knowing who he _is_ without that thing - that **shadow** \- looming over him. For not knowing if he even exists, without him - really, **truly** without him - and for knowing _how close he came to never seeing Poe or their children again. For - for - for -_

“Ben… Ben, it’s okay. It’s okay. I got you, I got you.”  


Warm hands. Warm arms. Not cold instruments. Not uncaring touches. A nose against his ear, breath across his cheek. The tears don’t stop, and he clutches back with hands that knot into fabric, with sobs that wet his hair, that snot his nose. “Poe…”

“He’s gone. He’s gone. You’re safe. You’re safe, and we’re taking you home.”  


“I d-d-don’t want to– to hurt– the _children_.”  


“You **won’t**.”  


“You don’t know what happened–” How he’d been sure he could never feel another emotion again, how he’d been incapable of feeling loss, pain, fear, anything.  


“Then tell me, babe.”  


“ **No**.”  


“Ben…”  


“No!”  


Ben tries to push Poe off, tries to shove at him, but he’s exhausted and sore and drug-hungover. He manages to get the heel of his palm into the space below Poe’s collarbone, but a hand cinches around his wrist. 

“Okay,” comes the voice. Calming, not Alpha. 

Ben wishes - almost - that he’d yell back. He pulls away as far as he can, glowering at him. He’s cried out, but he’s still sniffly. Sniffly, and tired, and cranky, and his eyes are blurred.   


Poe simply watches, compassion on every line of his face. 

“No.”  


“Alright.”  


“Poe, I mean it. I’m not - I can’t–”  


“If you need some space, that’s okay, but you’re not going to… Ben, you won’t hurt them. You wouldn’t. You ran away, when you thought you might.”  


“And if I hadn’t… Snoke would have taken the children, too.”  


Ben knows that. It’s why… he left. Why he ran. 

“But he’s gone, now.”  


“ _I know he’s gone, that’s what’s the problem_.”  


And as soon as he’s said it, Ben leaps backwards, smacking into the bulkhead behind him, horror on his face.

“…Ben?”  


“No…”  


“Ben… he was in your head. He was in your head, and you - you trusted him, once, didn’t you?” Poe looks so very sad, so very sad and tired.   


Ben is doing this to him. He’s making Poe tired. He drags his heels up towards his ass, and wraps his long arms around longer legs. He… had. Once. Or, wanted to. He’d wanted to believe it would be okay. He’d thrown himself so deeply into denial, rather than admit he’d made a mistake. Rather than fight him any more, or… the other thing. The opposite of surrender, but surrender all the same. _Ending._

Had he trusted him? Maybe. On some level. He’d wanted to believe he’d made the right decision, instead of accept that he’d been given an ultimatum: _bend, or break. Fall, or die._ He’d had no other choice to get the _voice_ out of his head, and he’d fought so long and hard… Ben _knows_ Snoke is - was - a monster, but still…

“I’m broken,” he whispers.  


“No. Baby…” Poe sits on the edge of the cot, not touching, but staying close. “Even if it wasn’t a good relationship, he was a huge part of your life. You’re… bound to feel… weird about it finishing. It’s okay. It’s okay. He… he used you, Ben. He used your need for love, and security, and he made you think he would protect you.”  


“But he was a **monster**.”  


“And you were a child, Ben.” Poe stays where he is, and Ben almost wishes he wouldn’t. “You wanted safety, and affection. He used those things, and - and - you looked to him for protection. That was _years_ of feeling like that. Even if your head knows he hurt you, your heart…”  


“…still wishes he hadn’t.” Ben takes a slow, slow breath. “But why can’t I just feel glad?”

“Because you’re not evil, Ben. You wouldn’t just want someone dead, would you?”  


“…I thought so, for a while.”  


“But it tore you in half. You’re _not_ like that. And you probably wish he could have been different, or that the past had been. But it wasn’t. And… you not being happy he’s dead isn’t something broken in you. It’s your… your hope. Your Light.”  


“Even if he didn’t deserve my l– me?”  


Poe nods, and slides closer. Ben waits, then also slides closer. He lets Poe slide an arm around him, and he nestles close and tight. A slow, slow breath. 

“I just wanted… I just… I don’t know. It was easier to hope he would make the pain go like he promised. That he’d train me, and that it would have been the right decision. If I thought about the truth, I’d crack.” He pushes his face into the crook of his neck. “I just wanted the pain to stop. I wanted to feel okay. Not afraid, or sad, or angry. I just wanted to feel okay.”  


“And you can.” Poe kisses his hair, arms squeezing. “You can. We take you home, and you remember all those happy days we had. You let a bit more Light in, every day, and we push all that sadness into the past, where it belongs.”  


Ben laughs. It’s sort of real. Sort of. “I don’t get how you manage to be this patient with me.”

“I’m making up for lost time, baby. All those years I should have been helping you. I got a _lot_ of lost time to make up…” He nuzzles his hair, and it makes Ben feel a bit better, still.  


“I’m sorry I’m such a mess. I think… it was just… I wasn’t prepared. And all the stuff they did, and _threatened_ … and my body feels like hell…”  


The scanner finishes, beeping a little way off. Poe checks with him, then goes to read. “Okay. You’re mostly alright, other than the sedatives and the - whoa, how much epi did you use? Okay… you need to drink plenty, and sleep. You think you can sleep?”

“If you hold me, yes.”  


Poe ruffles his hair. “I can hold. Let me get you some water…”

Ben grabs for his sleeve, making Poe wait and look at him. “…thanks. For… for everything.”

“Ben… you don’t need to thank me. I love you. And although it’s gonna be a rough few days, when you get through it… it’ll be better. I swear.”  


“Okay. Okay…” He lets go of his sleeve. “I think I do want to sleep.”  


“Water, then we can sleep all the way back home.”  


***

He does sleep the whole way back, with Poe curled up behind him. He’s too tall to really be the little spoon, but that’s never stopped his Alpha. Ben’s sleep is almost dreamless, just snatches of thoughts. Whenever his consciousness arches up from the darkness, he’s aware of the warm arm around him, and that sends him back under.

When they get back to their home base, he’s rocked awake. He blinks at the grey, gunmetal wall, and groans. 

“Wake up, sleepyhead. We’re almost home.”  


“Mgnrfh.”  


Kisses to his neck, chuckles, and Ben can feel the presence of other people nearby, so he turns in Poe’s arms. Presses their noses together, then looks over at the small audience.

“…I was just sleeping,” he protests, a little grumpy.  


“Kid, we’re just glad we got you back,” Han says.   


Ben puts his hand over his face. It’s… it’s a lot. It’s a lot to know how many people are here to fight for him, to come for him. Who won’t give up on him, not again. It hurts, and he wants them to go away so he can… something.

“Go get Leia,” Han tells Finn and Rey. “And a medic.”  


“No more medics,” Ben pleads.  


“One checkup. One. And then you can go home.” Han wags a finger at him.  


Ben tries to hide behind Poe.

“Your dad’s right, babe.”  


“I hate when that happens.”  


***

Ben almost doesn’t want to know, but they clear him of any lasting damage. He’s given some mild sedatives to cope with any withdrawl symptoms he might experience, but very mild. Ben isn’t sure he wants more medicines swirling through his system, but if it helps, well.

The worst part is the reproductive checks. He has to submit to those, as Poe holds his hand. They assess him, and declare he’s not been interfered with to the best of their knowledge. Although being drugged, Ben doesn’t know for certain if anything happened when he was utterly out. Still, there’s no biological signs or traces, and he’s cleared as perfectly healthy.

In fact, the doctor thinks he’ll resume his cycles soon. Ben doesn’t know if he should be relieved or not, but right now he thinks more ‘not’ than ‘yes’. Sex is the furthest thing from his mind, and he hopes Poe won’t feel disappointed. 

When the checks are all over, they go back to their home. Ben feels anxious, which only creeps up higher the closer they get. He feels the sudden realisation in his children, the arcing hand through the Force, seeking their omega. Ben swallows a smile, and when Kes opens the door, he’s greeted with a _wail_ from both of them, as they try to climb in his direction.

Feeling overwhelmed, it’s all Ben can do to stand still as Poe grabs Shara, and the two Damerons flank him. Little grubby hands paw the air, and Ben gulps. He brushes a hand through Bail’s hair, then Shara’s, and - nothing - nothing… terrible happens. The worry that he’d not be able to feel about them any more is washed clean away with the way his heart hurts, and he takes both of them. Takes them, and sits down on the couch, cuddling them against his chest. 

Bail’s finger goes from his ear to his nose, and then there’s an excited bounce. A little more of the horror fades, and he kisses Shara’s babysmell neck. “I missed you guys,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. Daddy didn’t mean to leave you, he just - he wanted to keep you from the monsters. But the monsters are gone, now, so you don’t need to worry. No you don’t, you don’t…”

Ben feels Kes and Poe’s eyes on him, and then Poe is sitting beside him, arm around his back, and Ben slides a mental touch through their Bond. His hands, after all, are somewhat full.

“They wouldn’t eat,” Kes says. “Think they knew you were coming. They’ve been staring at the door for an hour, it feels like.”  


That makes him beam. He gives Shara to Poe again, and they curl up together, bouncing their children. “Well, we can try, now. Slowly. Don’t want them to choke it all up again in excitement.”

“It’s good to have you back, Ben.” His father-in-law smiles. He means it. Ben can tell.  


“It’s… good to be back.” It is. It is. He turns to kiss Poe’s cheek, glad he let him convince him to come back home - to their _house_. To their family.   


Kes goes to get the food, and Ben… Ben lets the warmth of being here wash over him, lets the Light eke back into him. Bail chews on his stupid, borrowed clothes… yeah. He’s going to have to do something about the dumb, orange overalls before long.

But later. For now, he wants to be with the men, prince and princess who mean most to him. He wants to be with his family. 


	31. There’s progress now where there once was none

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe supports Ben through his reintegration to society, but he accepts a little help of his own, along the way.

There’s progress now where there once was none, where there once was none, then everything came along  
Although no one understood, we were holding back the flood learning how to dance the rain.  
There was more of them than us now they’ll never dance again.  


***

It was never going to happen overnight. Poe realises that, on some level. Not only had Snoke been a major part of Ben’s life for - well - the majority of his existence… but he’s not sure fully on the details of what happened while he was away. 

Ben says he doesn’t want to talk about it, not to him, and he has to respect that. The medics say he’s physically fine, now the sedatives have worn off. No poisoning, no evidence of medical interference. He’s probably lucky that they considered him a vessel more than anything, even though it makes Poe's skin crawl to think of that. Ben was more use as a greenhouse than as a person, and it makes his blood boil and–

Calm. Calm. Breathe. He clenches and unclenches his fists. Slow. Breathe.

He brought him home, made sure he felt like he was supervised at all time with the twins (as Ben wouldn’t be around them without someone there to keep check on him) until he felt he could be trusted. It has been utterly heartbreaking to see his mate’s eyes white with fear when he or Kes had to leave the room, a flicker of agony through their bond that made Poe’s head swim. 

Slowly. Slowly. His beloved omega has been relaxing into the patterns of civilisation; he accepts more visitors, and for longer. It’s been difficult because so many people care about him, but he’s been too ashamed of his predicament to allow anyone to come close. Even relatives have been at an arm’s length, and it’s been hard on Poe, too.

Today, Finn and Rey have come to visit. Rey and Ben are feeding the twins, talking baby-and-Force-stuff, and Finn has Poe cornered into the kitchen. It’s likely tactical, and it’s largely welcome. 

“Hey,” Finn says, not-so-subtly blocking him from bolting.  


“Hey. Thanks for coming round. I know we keep being impossible to get to come visit you…”  


“It’s not a problem, Poe. You know that. Your place is ours all you want, but we don’t mind coming to see you. Long as you’d kick us out if we overstep our welcome.”  


“Don’t think either of you ever could, but… thanks.”  


Poe takes a sip of the water he came for, and slides his fingers over the glass. Finn’s obviously here to either talk to him, or let him talk. There’s a loud squeal of delight from the next room, and Poe sinks into one of the chairs.

“It’s… it’s…”  


“You don’t need to worry about what you say to me, Poe. Hell. We’re all family, now, right? We’re family, so you can talk to me if you want to. But no pressure.”   


“It’s nothing.” Finn frowns at that, and Poe narrows his eyes. “It’s just… I thought… it would be better, you know? Being home. With us. I thought with Snoke gone, and all of us supporting him…”  


“It’s not your fault if he still feels uncomfortable, Poe.”  


“It is! I’m his _Alpha_. I’m supposed to make it better for him!”  


“Okay, I’m gonna stop you there. Just… take a breath for a minute. I’m beta, not omega, so I don’t _completely_ understand how you two work together, but I know what it’s like having an Alpha for a mate, okay? And I love Rey. I do. And I love that she wants to protect me, and care for me, and do everything she can to make my life safe and good. I _do_.”

“But.” There’s a but. He can hear it.  


“But not everything is her responsibility. If I have a terrible day, or I break a plate, or I make a mistake… those are mine.”  


“This wasn’t a dropped plate, Finn.”  


“Yeah, but: if you were him, and he was your Alpha… would you blame him for something like what happened to him? Cause I wouldn’t blame Rey. Not if she did everything in her power to save me, and then care for me. He’s upset. I get that it hurts you, but he’s _upset_. He might just need to **be** upset a bit, without feeling like he’s letting _you_ down for not being happy.”  


“Why would he–?”  


“Why would he blame himself for how you feel?” Finn’s eyes are amused. “Yeah. You figure it out, hot shot.”  


Poe ducks his head, amused. “We’re both a mess, right?”

“Yeah, but you’re cute together, so no one minds.”  


He deserves that, so he snorts, sips some more water, and then cocks his head back towards their respective partners. “Shall we go see if they want to go play in the copse out back?”

“Sounds great to me!”  


***

That night, the children safely in bed, Poe and Ben are snuggling by the headboard, some soft and soothing music just taking up the background noise. Ben’s arm is around his back, and he drapes his over his taller partner’s shoulder. Here, they can be almost on a height, and noses can touch without the same effort.

“I’m sorry,” Poe says, after a while.  


“…what for?”  


“For… trying to force you to feel better, so I feel better. I mean. I want you to feel better, but I didn’t want to put pressure on you, or make you feel like you were… like you **had** to suddenly be fine.”  


Ben pauses, and his fingers cease their tireless, perpetual motion. “Well. I’m not sorry. That you want me better. I’m just sorry it isn’t happening fast.”

Poe kisses at his temple, and smiles as Ben shunts his head under his chin. “You have had a lot happen in a short space of time. A lot to process. And you must feel like everyone’s watching you… but they’re only watching because they love you. Because they want to see if they can help. No one - not one person - blames you for what happened, or how you feel, now.”

“I do.”   


And he does. It’s simple, but true. “And I’ll tell you, even if it doesn’t feel it, that you aren’t to blame. That you broke out of that pit and helped put an end to him. That you saved my life and sanity, and that you’re brave, and strong. You’ll get through this, you will. I just… talk to me? Share things with me. Even if you think it might make me angry, just… tell me. I won’t get mad. Not at you.”

Ben peppers light kisses to his chest. “I don’t deserve such a loving mate.”

“You deserve one ten times better than me, but you got me, now, and I won’t give you up without a fight.”  


“Even if I… even if I take forever to recover?”  


“You won’t, but even then.”  


Ben accepts that, and curls in tighter. Poe feels a weight lift, and he sleeps a lot easier that night. A lot.


	32. It's time to try / It's time to fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many months pass, and Ben realises that Snoke is gone for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter of Howling Moon proper, as it concludes the story. HOWEVER, I’ll still accept prompts set in the ‘verse, it’s just that the overarching arc has come to a close. So there may be other omegaverse one-shots, set after this, but Moon itself is now wrapped up.

You've never been to the moon  
But don't you want to go  
Under the sea in the volcano  
You've never looked into my eyes  
But don't you want to know  
What the dark and the wild   
And the different know

Come dance with me now  
We'll dance without a care  
I'm as free as a fire  
And change is in the air  
There are some things in my life  
I'll never understand  
But they become the force  
That makes me who I am

Don't you worry about the kids  
The kids are all right  
Mama's rollin' in the back yard  
Filled with love and light  
'Cause you live and you learn  
And you learn to hold on  
And time will make it heal  
And time will make it gone

Come with me now  
Come with me now  
It's time to try  
It's time to fly

The Different - Melissa Etheridge 

***

It’s been months. Months. Without the Leader to keep the Knights in check, to spearhead and mastermind the First Order… things haven’t so much collapsed as started a descent into madness. Ben’s listened to the briefings, but really he’s retired from it, now.

He can’t fly. He can shoot, and he can use a saber on close range targets, and he still has the Force… but the battle’s shifted focus, shifted priorities. He’s no longer as sharp a cutting edge as he once was, and it’s more for the strategians and adrenaline-junkie fighter pilots. Like, say, his Alpha.

Ben still helps out, of course he does. It’s just that there’s less need, and he has his children to think about, and he’s reasonably sure he did more than his fair share when he brought down Snoke. He only feels occasionally guilty for staying home, trading diaper duty with his father-in-law.

Months. The Order crumbling by degrees. No malevolent, insidious voice in his ear. Not one that comes from outside, anyway. It gets quieter. 

Life gets easier.

One day, it sort of just - works.

He realises when he’s sitting watching the children play, pouring a long glass of iced lemonade. Shara and Bail are wobbling about and falling over onto the grass, little grubby paws meeting mulch. No tears, just shrieks of amusement as they chase after a butterfly or something. They are happy. More than just happy: they are _safe_. They won’t **hear** the voice that he did. They won’t be told they’re wicked, broken, wrong. All they’ll know is love from everyone, and they’ll have the freedom to be who and what they want.

Maybe they will want to be Jedi. Maybe not. Maybe one will want to fly, one to be a diplomat. Maybe they’ll want to act, or paint, or write, or teach. Ben isn’t going to stop them. Not at all. He wonders if it’s possible for them to grow up _without_ that crippling sense of duty and heritage, but he’s going to try his damndest to make them feel safe to be who and what they want to be. Even if his parents never meant to have him feel like he was falling short, their actions _did_ make him feel it, so he’s going to learn from their mistakes and make things a little better.

Even if it’s only a little better, generation by generation, that has to be worth it, right?

Shara tries to climb up onto the rocking toy, while Bail pulls clumps of grass and sod up to smear between his fat fingers. They could be anything, really. All of the above, nothing. Ben knows he’ll love them with all his heart no matter - no matter.

***

“You sure about this?”  


Ben nods. “I am.”

“Okay. Okay… if it’s what you want.”  


It is. He’s thought about it for weeks before making the request, and he knows it’s time.

Poe flies him out to one of the few remaining caves where crystals suitable for lightsabers still form organically. He knows he isn’t really a _Jedi_ , but he’s most assuredly never been a **Sith**. He’s not bound by the same rules and regulations that Luke offers his new students, but he…. he knows. He knows what the Dark feels like, and he knows he can be who he _is_ without it.

Loving his family isn’t Dark. What he might do _for_ them **could** be, but he’s determined he’s going to do everything he can to just be someone Poe is proud to love. Someone _Ben_ is proud to **be**. Maybe he won’t ever wield his saber again, maybe he’ll just use small tricks and shortcuts with the Force as his ally. He doesn’t know, but he owes it to his family to be ready to protect them in the future, and this is one way he can.

Ben walks through the caves, feeling for the resonance, looking for something that vibrates with the same speed and frequency that he does. His fingers trail over slumbering stones, and then an unerring sense of _rightness_ pulls him closer.

He bends, and finds a small shard of crystal. Like his old one, this is cracked. It’s cracked, but the stress-fracture is old and healed over. Inside the pale, golden walls is a thin sliver of deeper, redder fire. He holds it in his hand and squeezes, feeling for the power inside. It seems to know as much as he does that they’ve found one another.

They were both broken, once. Both splintered, shattered, at risk of falling into two down the cleft inside. The secondary material knits the two halves together just as strongly, and now it reflects and refracts the light more beautifully than it ever could before it sheared inside. Rainbow sparks throw out from the heart, and he knows it’s right. 

Broken. Healed. Stronger. Beautiful. 

Ben pushes his hair back behind his ear, and walks back to the ship. Poe’s waiting for him, and he’ll start his work on crafting his new saber when they get back home. To _their_ home. To their **family**.

He isn’t a Jedi, and it’s okay. He isn’t a Sith. He’s… Ben. Husband, omega, father, son. Soldier, lover, teacher, student. 

He’s got a place in the galaxy, and he doesn’t need to bend himself into shape to fit any more. He’s _home_. The crystal in his hand seems to agree, and he can’t wait to see it blaze light like the sun from his grip. 

No Jedi. _Ben_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. The 'verse is still open, but as a set-piece with plot... it's concluded :) (AKA I will write fluff and smut for omega!Ben and Alpha!Poe, but not any massive adventures.)


End file.
